ADVERTISING & MARKETING  What is marketing about if not engagement? But what it is and how do you measure it? The fact is that the most important metric is the most poorly defined word in the ad industry lexicon. Watching an ad, talking to a call centre, wearing a label, tasting a cool beer on a summers day, chatting with friends about a product, using a branded app, all are engagements and all matter, yet most of them happen outside of the view of any reliable measuring technology, at least those I know about. Read on

INDUSTRY TALK  Following a conversation with a well known media personality I was encouraged by the animated enthusiasm that 'main street' media now has for social networking strategies, but somewhat unimpressed by the reasons they have arrived at this conclusion. They droned on about the usual proliferation of amplifiers on twitter, facebook and YouTube and the impact of negative opinion on brands. This is good I thought, but as the conversation progressed I was struck by the lack of any counter arguments emerging on the limitations of social networking and what seemed to be a wiliness to accept as gospel any 'case studies' that are thrown at them. Read on

ADVERTISING & MARKETING  It has been said that the basic difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions. The analogy can be applied to the effective difference between TV and the web, where TV generates emotional actions while the web leads to deliberation, then to conclusions, what cause either action (e.g. a sale) or inaction depending on the result of reason or logic having time to emerge. This limitation of web marketing is not understood by many digital planners still blinkered by the technology. Its time to stop talking about impressions or the latest version of Flash and to learn to love TV, as the future of the web is increasingly looking like a supporting actor to the starring role of TV. Read on

TECHNOLOGY  Forget Mobile, Social Networking and even the 'Big Idea", your competitive advantage is staring you in the face, infact its hemorrhaging away as you read. Its the data-exhaust produced as a consequence of customer interactions with your brand, and if you are not effectively leveraging this you are wasting your most valuable asset. How can you possible be an agile marketer if you are making strategic decisions based on half truths and gut feels? Help is on the horizon, but different systems, methodologies and processes for obtaining analytics capabilities are needed. Read on

SOCIAL MEDIA  I may be branded a nonbeliever by the digital clergy, but I believe that social media is not connecting us in any meaningful way, well at least not in any way that can be classified as 'relationships'. This is not a Luddite call to burn your computer and engage more in the real world, but more a questions of what implications this has on the formulation and limits of any social strategy. Read on

At his startup s headquarters in New York, Avi Muchnick, a 2010 TR35 member, explains where the inspiration for his online multimedia editing suite, Aviary, came from, and how people can use it to share work. Read on

Johns reaction: Interesting idea

TWO firms want to redefine the internet. Or so it seems, judging by the legislative framework proposal that Google and Verizon, an American telecoms operator, published on August 9th. Read on

Johns reaction: This will mean that certain vested interests get preferential data treatment. Making its harder for small start-ups. The age of the facebook from left field could be past and may be a motivating factor as it gives the established companies more time to copy model. Big business is ultimately about predictability for shareholders.

In this podcast, Jeanne Harris, executive research fellow and director of research at the Accenture Institute for High Performance and co-author of Analytics at Work, talks with John Hagerty, research vice president at Gartner who is responsible for Gartner s analysis on the strategies, practices and trends driving enterprise performance management and analytics. Read on

Johns reaction: Analytics is Accenture’s Mantra these days, how to conquer the world of marketing through numbers. Worth a listen

The board of Australia's biggest media buyer Mitchell Communication Group has recommended to shareholders that they accept a bid from Aegis to purchase the company for $363m. Read on

Johns reaction: The end of the last big independent

Election 2010 offers politicians the opportunity to embrace an ever-maturing portfolio of social media platforms to engage with Australian voters, but are the politicians making the most of the available platforms? Research by Edelman suggests it is currently being underutilised. Read on

Johns reaction: And #GreensMPs second