Today I caught the keynote panel discussions at Ad:Tech, the marketing conference dedicated to all things interactive, especially advertising.

The morning panel — "Content is King! (Again?)" — included Kourosh Karimkhany, the general manager of Wired Digital, the news site and sibling of WIRED magazine.  In addressing how content creation is changing and how the dialog established by new-era Internet companies is influencing the advertising industry, Mr Karimkhany referred to this week’s journalist-versus-blogger encounter.  Here’s the objective account on Valleywag, with links to everyone’s blogs.

WIRED editors had planned an article about the tech industry figure Michael Arrington.  The reporter asked entrepreneur and Sequoia Capital exec Jason Calacanis and the intrepid technologist Dave Winer to schedule telephone interviews.  Both agreed to participate, but only via email. 

To understand why, it’s best to visit their blogs — but as I understand it, going forward, both Calacanis and Winer want to ensure that their words are relayed in context, as they define context.  Their faith in the traditional journalistic process has diminished with their personal experiences.  So they want to ensure that no comments are lost in translation or transcription.

It’s all been sorted out, but the magazine’s initial reaction was not too positive.  However, as Mr Karimkhany pointed out this morning, the content that emerged from the ensuing conversation on all parties’ blogs has proved to be as good or better than anything the proposed article would have revealed.

At the end of the conference day, the keynote conversation took a different turn. 

Tony Perkins, a respected journalist and leader of the AlwaysOn Network, presided over a group of "old warriors" who "don’t die."  This group had come of Internet age during the 1990s with great success — interactive agency, advertising network, search engine, research organization.  They know their stuff.

Coming off the Web 2.0 conference, I was intrigued by the use of the words "broadcast" and "audience" throughout the discussion.  And having had ad industry clients in the past year, I was surprised.  My experience is that many ad professionals, whatever their age or career experience, are choosing their words more carefully.  They understand, whether we all like it or not, that the advent of user-generated content and distribution has brought about a metamorphosis in how advertisers and their various agents promote and sell.  Instead of broadcast, it’s dialog.  It’s not audience, it’s community.

As the panel discussion continued, it became clear that we were still circling around the issue.  Believe me, I understand that.  While command-and-control was never right, I have had difficulty accepting how many people use the Internet — and this marvelous device called blogging — to pontificate without portfolio.  But I’m learning that this is what happens with the advent of landmark change.  We’re in a big whirlpool right now, and the seas will calm eventually, revealing who really knows what.  Because that always happens.

Anyway, when Q&A time arrived, I had to ask the question:  did the panelists agree that we are experiencing a shift beyond the mere opening of a new communication channel — and if so, what is its impact on advertising?  One panelist had referred to the Internet as this age’s medium, just like television and radio were in their time, and said the Internet is important because it is changing everything.  But we never got to why and how, leaving his comments hanging out there as little more than lip service.

So I referred to what Mr Karimkhany of Wired Digital had said that morning — of Calacanis and Winer wanting to participate in the interview on their terms.  To my mind, it’s an example of the change we are witnessing in how information is uncovered and shared.  I wanted to know what the panelists think this means to the advertising industry.

Mr Perkins’ first response, after calling me a young lady — greatly appreciated! — was to call Calacanis and Winer "chicken s@#$s" and "control freaks."  Boy, that was distracting. 

Here I thought that we’d just get a little probative insight into the Web 2.0 thing.  I almost missed the important answers of Kevin O’Connor and Jonathan Nelson, founders of Organic and DoubleClick, respectively, who made a point I had as yet not read or heard:  that a two-way, one-to-one relationship was not something every buyer wants in every purchase situation.  It depends on the product, the buyers’ perceptions of the brand and the brand strategy.  Now that’s the start of a dialog that advertising agents and web entrepreneurs ought to be having.

But I’m concerned that this will never happen.  It occurred to me that many of the subjects covered by Web 2.0 Expo ought be on the program for Ad:Tech, and vice versa.  We need to cross pollinate. 

As long as people are using labels and pigeonholes the minute they hear a particular person’s name or profession and not hearing the question because the existing filters are immutable, the true value of Internet technology will elude us.  And by value, I mean product innovation, thought leadership and profit for all.  Because if the Internet means anything, it means room for all defined by all.

Ustream.tv is not the technology used by justin.tv.  But if you’d like to do your own bit of lifecasting or livecasting, check out ustream.

I’m weighing in on the Spock controversy, even though the tech gossip blogs are calling people names when they do.

Background:  we’re talking about a presentation by the co-founder of Spock, a search engine in beta, to the Web 2.0 conference last week.  The purpose was to showcase the product.  He began the demo, and his own home page on the engine came up on the screen.  Which is how we learned that his favorite search is SPORTS ILLUSTRATED swimsuit models.

So after the first cringe, I
prayed the guy wouldn’t go there — for his sake, for his backers’
sake, for marketing’s sake.  Prayer unanswered.  He went on to use the
supermodel subject as an example of how you can keep specifying the
search on his marvelous little engine. 

Yes, I was offended, even hurt.  For the obvious reason — but I’ve been dealing with insensitivity for ages.  Do the workaround.

There is another gorilla in the blogosphere.  If you startup founders, and any other kind of management figure, for that matter, wrestle it to the ground, you won’t ever find yourself in hot water again.  At least on this topic.

Presentation content featuring people of any gender, in any stage of undress, is inappropriate for a business audience. 

Use another example in your demo, for crying out loud.  If your search engine is so fabulous, show us something a little more arcane.  Of course you’re going to get a lot of hits for semi-dressed human mannequins in your demo.

OK, fine, Mr Co-Founder’s favorite search is supermodels.  Very cute.  But do I and every other stranger in the
audience, gender whatever, need to know this?  That’s more information than I’ll ever need, and some habits are better kept private.

Besides, you’re in front of a
massive audience,
with professional women whose jobs require them to remain dressed, whether you like it or not. 

Rule Number One in
speechmaking is to make everyone in the audience feel welcome to your
message — not to exclude them from the dialog you want to establish.  And even though Rule Number Two is to inject a controversial point into a speech, this wouldn’t be it.  We’re talking thought leadership, not hormonal pandering.

I did a little research about Mr Co-Founder.  He is a guy with a sterling pedigree.  Accenture and Wharton among
the names dropped in his resume.  And, I’m not kidding, he went to Rutgers, too. 

I know for a fact that Accenture puts its people through sensitivity training and presentation practice.  Goodness only knows what Wharton is teaching its MBA candidates — but I’d be willing to bet that this isn’t it.  And one would think that the VCs backing Spock would be offering some coaching.  But I’ve been wrong on that one before.

Please, don’t remind me that this was one of the highest-ranked presentations at Web 2.0.  Or that the Spock website is getting more hits as a result.  Sometimes, we should be responsible for responsibility’s sake. 

Now, there’s a controversial idea for all of us in the Silicon Valley startup community.

Some random impressions from the Web 2.0 Expo this week in San Francisco.

O’Reilly and CMP did an excellent job.  This was the first conference, which John Battelle describes as an expansion of the Web 2.0 Summit that this team created.  Content-wise, they covered a lot of territory.  Kinks to work out, but they’re aware of them.

I appreciated the option of attending on an exhibit hall pass, which provided access to the keynotes and a few breakout sessions.  This is nice for entrepreneurs, companies with a small training budget, people who can’t commit three full days and evenings and those of us who just wanted to check out the approach before committing budget.

A lot of people have blogged about the embarrassing, irritating,
offensive example the Spock co-founder used in his presentation.  More
on this in the next post.

Still hearing the term "disruption," and I still don’t like it, even though it’s here to stay.  It’s a negative way to describe an organic, necessary and positive aspect of the advance of technology, innovation by innovation.  Of course, I don’t have any suggestions yet for a new term.

One of the best developments out of this era [Web 2.0] is the evolution of enterprise-scale technology solutions.  Companies can now create what I call, in my own non-techie way, hybrid systems — combining traditional hardware/software tools with web-based applications — to fuel higher productivity and collaboration.  A great example is Suite Two.  More on this in a subsequent post.

One of my favorite encounters was with Chris Pirillo.  This week, he started streaming video from his website.  He’s developing even more relationships as a result — lots of people logging on and talking with each other via the chat room — and with Chris while he’s "on camera."  Chris showed me how it works, live.  It’s fun.  Plus, I really like how Chris is establishing rules of the road without being heavy-handed about it.  Everyone seems to be remembering their manners without stifling opinions or conversation.

Since Chris’s laptop was running out of juice, Johnny Ham of ustream.tv loaned him his — which has a camera built into the screen.  Nice example of the collaborative feeling of the entire conference.  Johnny’s technology is responsible for San Francisco’s latest hot topic, JUSTIN TV.  Don’t know whether to thank Johnny for that or not.  And, Dave Winer is testing the technology, too.

While the sponsors probably want to expand attendance, this was the
perfect size for me.  It was in the smaller Moscone West, so it felt
more intimate.  Which leads to my next point.

Like any conference,
the thing I liked the most was breaking out of my circle to meet new
people, who, in brief conversations, can share a lot of insight and
actually teach you something.  Goes double for this one, because it was about technology.  Also, the breakouts were relaxed and
content focused, which also encouraged conversation with the speakers
and panelists. 

Some new faces [for me]:  Mark Schulze of Quantcast; Gregg
Pollack, Ruby on Rails evangelist; Jeremy Pepper; Luis Jose Salazar of
Microsoft Office Live; corporate training advisor Dan Baldwin; Matt
Corgan, John Fitzpatrick and Douglas Pope of hotpads.com; Marc Levin; internet strategist Stephanie Agresta; Terre Layton.

The lovable familiar faces:  Sylvia Paull — featured in May’s FAST COMPANY, Kaliya Hamlin, Susan Mernit, Marissa Levinson.

THE WASHINGTON POST ran this article in today’s edition.  It’s about a 12-year-old girl in Alexandria, Virginia — Megan Coyle — who has a dog walking business.

One of the things I’ve learned from the VCs during the funding pitch process is to show how the product or service already satisfies customers and why the entrepreneur thinks the business has a future that’s worthy of financial backing.

Ms Coyle captures what she has learned in a most matter-of-fact manner.  No puffery.  Maybe she’ll be up for reviewing the business plan of the next startup I do!