Right now I’m debating the qualities of this Wordpress blog & my newer Posterous blog.  Each could serve different purposes, and each has its own qualities.  But at the end of the day, the platform matters a lot less than the dialogue within it.  And there’s a lot less dialogue happening on this Wordpress blog than with Posterous.

For now, I’m keeping both. I’ll be experimenting with posting deeper commentary about account service and digital marketing on this blog, and save more anecdotes for Posterous.  But it’s entirely possible that I’ll merge the two down the road. Do you use both?  If so - are you considering merging the two or keeping them separated to serve different audiences and purposes?  I’m curious to know.

After a few conversations with Erik Proulx over at PleaseFeedTheAnimals.com, we’ve agreed that I’ll have a weekly presence on his blog

Erik and I first talked after I reached out to him to share a point of view about the job search process, namely those positions that people in our business tend to interview for that go away.  In my latest post, I talk about what account service peeps can do with their downtime.  If you’ve got extra time on your hands, how are you spending it?  I really want to know.

From 4pm to Midnight, Charlie greets everyone by name. He gets up from his desk and opens the door.  He knows who’s looking for wedding rings, who makes good steak and who is having trouble with their satellite service.  He answers the phone on the first ring.  Success to him is ensuring that everyone leaves that lobby with a laugh or a smile. And he achieved this no less than 10 times in the 5 minutes I was waiting for my friend to show up.

What’s his secret?  “You’ve got to fake it till you make it,” he says.

I know some of the people that have provided proposals and wanted to vote on their ideas, but 2211 interactive-category proposals is a staggering amount to consider and vote on.  Therefore, I gathered a list of prominent advertising, interactive and PR agencies and used SXSW’s search tool to see what each has suggested.  You have until September 4 to vote on panel ideas that interest you the most, so get voting!

The highlights:

• Most of the traditional large-scale advertising agencies have not submitted anything (aside from DDB and DraftFCB)
• The digital agencies with the most proposals are Razorfish & Sapient. Both were recently given accolades from Forrester in its Q3 Wave Report for their leadership in digital strategy & execution. NEO@Ogilvy also has five submissions mostly in the SEM/SEO space.
• Agencies located closer to the event (GSD&M, Tocquigny) have a mixed showing but it’s clear that IMC2 (based in Dallas) wants to make its presence known.  It submitted the second-most of any agency reported here (21)
• Notably absent are other digital front-runners VML, Rosetta and R/GA despite their ‘au courant’ status in the industry
• Public Relations agencies (2nd tab on the sheet below) have a limited presence and even notable thought-leaders like Steve Rubel haven’t sent proposals in this round.  Then again, people like Steve could end up as keynotes, so it remains to be seen what will happen between now and next spring.

Finally, the most interesting agency submissions (IMHO) come from Schematic.  They’ve proposed five topics that seem very interesting and definitely worth checking out.

Table of SXSW Panel Submissions

Which panels interest you the most?

Update: R/GA’s Richard Ting & Chloe Gottlieb have submitted two ideas.

Following up yesterday’s post about learning how to write more effectively, I’d like to share a concept closely related: that of telling a story.

Of all the things that I believe advertising does, creative storytelling as at the top of the list.  Before you go off and tell me that this is a blog focused on account service, I’d like to propose that storytelling is critical no matter what position you’re in.  The discipline required to focus on the right subject and communicate it engagingly and convincingly takes a lot of hard work.

Those of you who have had to work on a cat litter account or a writing utensil account will know exactly what I’m talking about.  That’s because the interest in a product is less obvious on the surface for some more than others.

Rather than tell you how to form a good story, I’d like to share some sources of storytelling that inspire me with their brilliance:

1) The Moth: available as a podcast via iTunes & RSS, this regular storytelling venue captures an eccentric variety of people who are all good at crafting a message and sharing it. Try out a few episodes for your commutes to & from work

2) TED: If you’ve never heard of TED conferences, stop what you’re doing right now and check it out.  TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. You’ll find a number of presentations by people who are the best thinkers in their fields; they present their cases in incredibly compelling ways.

3) StoryCorps: Its mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening. Since 2003, over 50,000 people have shared life stories with family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind.

Are there any other sources of great storytelling that you keep track of? Who’s really good at it?

The Art of Client Service by Robert Solomon is one of the clearest, easiest, quickest and most direct books I’ve read on the subject of advertising account service.  In the book, Solomon shares a set of commandments ideals that those in account service should be mindful of. I read the book at a rough spot in my career and it helped me refocus my priorities to some of the core fundamentals that those of us in account service sometimes need reminding of.

In addition to Solomon’s book, here’s three more for recommended reading that I’ve found help improve writing & communication skills.  Considering an average account executive reads and/or writes upwards of 200 emails a day, solid writing skills (and zen sorting skills) as valuable as ever.

1) The Elements of Style by William Strunk & E.B. White: the defacto standard on proper literary technique

2) On Writing Well by William Zinsser (the title couldn’t be more descriptive)

3) Death Sentences by Don Watson: an argument for reducing the “business speak” some use too much

Are there any books you’ve found that help you write & communicate better?

Deconstructing the AdAge Power 150

Last week, I took a one-day sampling of the Advertising Age Power 150 blog list, looking in particular for blogs that emphasized service in our industry. I focused on the top 150 listings and categorized them based on the content they provide (or a category they in some way articulated).

Breakdown of blog types in AdAge Power 150

The majority of the Power 150 is dominated by 5 key areas: marketing (32%), advertising (18%), social (13%), PR (11%) and search (11%). Within advertising (my area of personal experience), blogs about creative (31%), strategy (21%) and news (18%) take up the top spots. In fact, I only found one blog within the top 500. Leo Bottary’s Client Service Insights (which has some tasty nuggets to chew on). Granted, I realize that the AdAge Power 150 isn’t the only source of relevant blogs about this industry but it carries a definite amount of influence.

What do I want to accomplish?

There’s plenty of blogs that provide detail on marketing strategy. There’s plenty of blogs that stay on the forefront of technology.  Ad publications of many flavors fill in with creative. This space intends a conversation around what it means to be accountable in this more digitally-connected marketing world. I’ve learned ways to leverage technology to do the job of account service better and I’m happy to share them.

I’ll also be looking for your advice, your ideas, your questions, your challenges.  Let’s do this!

To start, here’s a few blogs that I found during my initial search to find other account guys & gals:

Distributed Presence ™

Account Management 2.0

EyeCube

But that’s just a taste. I’m hungry for more input.

Augmented Reality in Marketing

• Topps 3D Live Baseball Cards
• GE Smart Grid Technology
• Jack Link’s Sasquatch
• BMW Z4 Expression of Joy (UK) examples 1, 2, 3
• Mini Cabrio (Germany)
• Transformers “We Are Autobots”
• Doritos Late Night (must have a bag)
• USPS Virtual Box Simulator
• Volvo Ocean Race 2009 (Malaysia) examples 1, 2
• Zugara Webcam Social Shopper
• Lionsgate “Gamer” Movie Poster

Augmented Reality in Mobile

• The Hidden Park (iPhone game)
• Wikitude AR Travel Guide (Google Android app)
• Nearest Tube (iPhone app - awaiting app store approval)
• TwittARound (iPhone 3GS app integrating with Twitter)
• Layar (Google Android browser)

Augmented Reality in the Future

• Food Tracer (mobile phone app that supplements the retail experience)

What’s Unique?

Topps & BMW both focus on personal interaction between the user and the AR component. While their experiences are simplified, they still enable the user/viewer to interact with the experience by moving objects around the “real” environment of a desk.  The USPS box simulator is one of the most useful AR example because it enables a person to better understand what box is needed to ship a person’s real-life item. And though it’s not active for a retailer or clothier yet, Zugara shows the most potential so far because the user navigates through the experience with their hands (not a keyboard).

Mobile games & apps leveraging AR is extremely interesting because it takes the experience to the street or store (and away from the desktop). We’re starting to see examples of companies providing additional product information on-pack with AR and mobile educational games in parks that leverage AR to teach children about the world around them.

Here’s a couple ideas to get things started:

• Restaurants could use AR to replace tabletop placards with interactive games or menu info while waiting for food
• Consumer Durable goods could use AR to replace basic product info with interactive FAQs (and rely less on in-store staff)

Have a few of your own?

After going through the video, I bang you over the head with the fact that the banner shown has two problems: poor rich media coding & an open question field that doesn’t really help consumers with the brand experience. Though the banner didn’t entice me to click through to view the Wheat Thins site, I have a couple suggestions:

Provide a few (3-5) entertaining & informative choices for closed-ended questions
- Though having questions to pick from isn’t ultimate freedom, it does keep the focus on the brand message
- Less questions means higher production value for the video answers Carl does end up providing
- Less questions also enables more controlled, useful and informative answers that may help communicate product benefits
- Less production work (both the video production & copywriter!)
- Less time required for brand team’s approvals

If open-ended questions are desired, then solicit questions from consumers that “Carl” could answer in the future
- The open text entry could be captured to learn what consumers really want to know
- Data captured = another interesting/useful data point… track # of questions, # of interactions, depth/type of responses, etc
- Promoting future interaction could create interest for the brand and the product (and even Carl)

Maybe you have others? Maybe this format’s not so great? Let me know…