I’ve been in Romania for the last few days. Which has been really interesting. I’ve been getting to hang out with Russell and Faris, which is always a nice thing. We’ve been talking at a thing called the ‘ideas forum’: http://www.ideaforum.ro/ in Bucharest.
I don’t know if people really liked what we were saying that much (or specifically what I was saying). There seemed to be a few people in the various rooms who were a bit excited and engaged. But I think for a lot of people the whole digital thing just seems like theory. Or maybe they’re just quite quiet and shy (which I think is part of the case).
Someone I was talking to at lunchtime today said: “You three are like men from our future”. I love the idea of being a man from the future, but I don’t really agree. They are going through a lot of the same things we did 2 or 3 years ago. But I’m hoping that they’ll catch up a whole lot quicker than that. What with Internet time being really fast and compressed and everything. And I’m sure they’ll find newer, better ways of solving the issues. It’d be nice to think that other people can benefit from looking elsewhere and not having to make the same mistakes other people have already done.
I might share my presentation on here. Basically it was about how to ‘Do More with Digital’ – it’s kind of a progression from the 10 Reasons stuff to actually talk about the good things we should, and hopefully are, doing. But I’m trying to decide how to best do it as it doesn’t make that much sense without commentary. I’ll figure it out…
We were shown around and generally looked after by a couple of lovely people who were very generous in their time and just general niceness. Thanks Bogdana who is a planner with low expectations and Christian who was one of the organisers.
You probably won’t believe this but in Romania they treat people who know about the Internet like popstars. Here’s what happened when Faris and I arrived at the hotel:
Yes, it’s either that or the fact that you were actually blocking their view of the popstars just happening to arrive in Bucharest at the same time. :)
Everyone at work would have believed me too! Damn your comment ;-)
Thanks for stopping by! Was it useful or interesting? Or were we just talking a load of old self indulgent rubbish that had no relevance to anyone else but ourselves?
(By the way I’ve just looked and Minhea has a nice blog at: http://dontgodizzy.blogspot.com/ – and it’s in English so don’t worry)
sigh. for one brief moment we were a boyband ;-p
Yes, it’s a pity I wasted all of that potential tabloid publicity you guys would’ve gotten back home. :)
Oddly enough, I didn’t stick around at the presentations (my schedule was loaded – the show must go on, or so they say). But I did get tons of feedback – and thus sadly confirmed my beliefs that we’re in the digital stone age at the moment. What’s worse is that, like you said, it’s still all theory to most of them. The generation gap (between let’s say a 20yr old and a 25yr old here) is stunning when it comes to views on the relevance of digital. They just don’t get it.
Oh and thanks for visiting my blog. :)
I think the whole conference was very inspirational, especially the idea of having a contest between digital and advertising between Russel’s group and Iain’s group (although the subject of the contest, being ‘making banking better’ did not allow you to get very creative and viral because of the client-bank relationship which is usually a very cold one).
People are interested and willing to understand how should they ‘get digital’. There were a lot of agencies and clients as well. A lot of things went clear, and if the audience does not ‘get it’ now, it sure was helpful to them in their quest to ‘get it’ :)
In my opinion once a big player makes a move on (true) digital (so not just flash banners that tent to annoy you) great things are gonna come to surface.
To make a conclusion i think it was a very useful experience with open minded speakers willing and succeeding (again, in my opinion) to make the audience understand their point.
Iain, keep up the good work, and see you next time in Bucharest.
hope you had a great time with us and you’ll come back very soon. thank you, iain!
Hi all!
Very Interesting…
G’night