Against the machine

In the grand scheme of things, search marketing is a relatively young thing. So to see loads of people attending a week's long conference just on search opened my eyes a little as to how popular (and serious) this topic was amongst many different companies throughout the world.

At first I thought people signed up just to gate crash the party being held at Google HQ, but I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of information covered by the sessions that were held.

The mix of folks attending also made for great people watching. What I've discovered over the past few months is that success in search marketing requires a person to be left and right brained. You have to be good with numbers, data and details but then also be creative and have the ability to see the big picture. The result leaves you bordering on the schizophrenic.

The one thing that baffled me was that no matter which session you went to, people always left at least two seat spaces between each other. I couldn't work out if that was some weird "don't invade my personal space" trait or whether the people already seated had personal hygiene problems.

Of all of the sessions I attended, the most amusing by far goes to Lee Siegal, author of "Against the Machine", a book about how the Internet is turning us into solitary and unsociable beings since "People don't talk or write anymore. They blog and email". Quite fitting since 90% of the audience at the time were on their iPhones Emailing/texting/tweeting. It seems people don't listen much anymore either.

He also talked about bloggers being angry individuals who hid behind their anonymity. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that, but my favourite quote from the discussion was that "If you can't say what you write in a blog to a person's face then you are not entitled to that opinion at all". Hear hear!

Common-sense please

Common-sense is an much underrated skill. I've been blessed with it in some respects, but alas not in others... particularly where flat packed furniture is concerned.

But something happened the other day that got me thinking about the importance of common-sense.

I got pulled into a meeting to give my opinion on an advert that a creative agency put together. The first thing I noticed about it was a very random headline. Cue a ten minute explanation from their very creative director who told me all about the meaning behind it. The headline was so clever in fact, that I can't even recall the explanation behind it now. Mind of a sieve, me (note to self: work on memory).

Now I may not be as creative, or have as many letters after my name as the people sitting in the room... But the ten minute explanation, I think, was reason enough for not using the headline. Someone bring out the common-sense coulée please.