Oct 27, 2009
Media140 – A mixed bag
Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the second Media140 event in London. This event was focused on brands and their use of social media platforms (particular focus on Twitter) and whilst it was a good event overall, like many events of this nature, it often drifted from insightful to insufferable (and back again).
The most notable thing missing from the conference was the number of brands in attendance – both in speaker slots and the audience. Whilst the likes of BA, Virgin Trains and Red Bull made a valued and insightful contribution, the event would have benefited from more case studies and brand perspective rather than theoretical hyperbole which was, at times, all that was coming from the stage.
That said, I would still recommend attending Media140 to colleagues and fellow social media enthusiasts as between the sales pitches and agency showcasing it did spark some lively debate and offered valuable face time with an inner circle of marketing bods who are influencing the way brands use the social media space.
The highlights for me included the excellent David McCandless who received the biggest cheer of the day simply by demonstrating the power that creative imagery can have on data. An example of his work is below but I urge you to read more via his Flickr channel (and buy his book in February 2010).
Also Ciaran Norris provided some excellent case studies of brands harnessing the 2.0 world, some more successfully than others. Richard Baker, General Manager at Virgin Train made us all reflect a little and appreciate that brands can be great at Twitter if they take a down to earth attitude towards it and simply try to help people. And finally, Ted Hunt from Innocent Drinks who not only found a suitor within the audience but managed to keep his composure throughout a particularly raucous TwitterFall to demonstrate how personality is key to social media success.
Ande, who organises the events (whilst juggling a full time job I should add), kept his cool between major wi-fi outages which frustrated those in attendance and is looking to host further Media 140 events across the globe over the coming months. I would encourage everyone, if they get the chance, to attend and find out more about how brands, marketers and the media are harnessing the connected web.
As one panel member put it quite brilliantly (and honestly) yesterday, “…at the end of the day we’re all just making it up as we go along”. We are, but with events like Media140 we can at least pretend we know what we’re doing
hey Dan,
Here’s a great pix by @paul_clarke of you at the event:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34916866@N02/4046262819/in/pool-media140
Oh how embarrassing – at least it shows I was paying attention and didn’t spend the day with my head buried in my iPhone, tweeting.
Still looking suave there Mr Leach! And still not visibly aging I see. Good to see a post! Bizzarrely it came up on That Google while I was looking for info about the founders of Innocent. Brilliant.
Ah, Mr Chilestone – so good to hear from you. Yeah sorry for the lack of posts, it takes me 4 months to plan what to write
One good post every four months is, of course, better than fifty rubbish ones every week.
[...] Dan Leach paints a mixed picture – a good event, but more brands would have really made it. He specifically refers to David McCandless who perked everyone up towards the end of the afternoon, with his excellent – and highly visual – presentation, using samples from his Information is Beautiful blog and book. [...]
Classic line at the end of the post: “…at the end of the day we’re all just making it up as we go along”. We are, but with events like Media140 we can at least pretend we know what we’re doing”. Love it.