On Wednesday October 1st, about ten of TopRank’s finest will be making the trek from the Western suburbs to downtown Minneapolis for the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association’s (MIMA) “sold out” Summit.
As in years past, MIMA Summit will take place at The Depot with a new focus on the subject of “mutualism”. Mutualism centers on the open use of material in the online world, in which web marketers and users alike participate with one another and share information together. In that spirit, I’m going to take the information provided by MIMA about the Summit and share with our readers.
The MIMA Summit is an all-day event including two keynote speakers (Rebecca Lieb & Ze Frank), numerous breakout sessions on just about every interactive marketing topic you could wish for and of course, a happy hour. Here are a few sessions I’m planning on attending to give you a taste of what the MIMA Summit 2008 has to offer.
Opening Keynote: “The Decline of Advertising and the Creative Renaissance” Rebecca Lieb, former Editor-in-Chief for the ClickZ Network, will kick off the MIMA Summit looking at the shift from ‘advertising’ to ‘marketing’ in the digital sphere. You can read our recent interview with Rebecca here.
“Creativity: Bridging Traditional to Digital Adrian Ho and Christian Erickson of Zeus Jones explore the creative divide between traditional advertising and digital marketing. Using real-world examples, this digital marketing duo will give advice on blending creative messaging into the value-driven digital landscape.
What Conversation? The Summit’s second keynote address will be given by Ze Frank, online performance artist, humorist and composer. Ze will be examining how brands can successfully participate in online conversations. The MIMA description assures that Ze will most likely avoid the difficult questions and instead focus on his own experiences. Who doesn’t love tangents?
Corporate Blogger: Angel or Demon? Director of Marketing Communications and Blogger Valeria Maltoni explains the interesting phenomenon that is the corporate blogger. Valeria will draw on her personal experience to give advice on blogging effectively about an organization while maintaining an authentic voice.
Happy Hour with Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. While I don’t know much about this comedy duo from North Carolina, what I saw on their website gives me hope that their show will be entertaining. I also like the fact that one of the comedian’s last name contains the word ‘laugh’ and the other’s first name is ‘link,’ which is only fitting for a digital marketing event.
There are many more sessions taking place at Wednesday’s MIMA Summit. Between all of us, the TopRank crew should be able to attend most of them and bring our newfound knowledge into play with both officemates and clients. Plus with all the humor on the schedule, we should have a new set of interactive marketing jokes to share.
If you’re attending the MIMA Summit this week AND you’re a Twitter enthusiast, be sure to tweet @mimasummit about the event happenings, questions and observations during sessions. To follow the MIMA Summit conversation, click or subscribe to this MIMA Summit Twitter Search . MIMA Summit info is also on Facebook.
You can read our past coverage of MIMA Summit events here.
