Happy April Fool’s Day! We now resume our regular programming…
Five weeks ago at xPotomac, nine speakers and one emcee delivered speeches and conversation starters that sparked 25-30 minutes of questions and answers each. The following nine videos are listed in the order of presentation.
Special thanks to my client Vocus for providing videography services. Vocus is hosting the Demand Success 2013 conference in Washington, DC this June 20-21. The event focuses on marketing best practices for converging media, and includes speakers like Arianna Huffington, Content Marketing Institute Founder Joe Pulizzi, digital journalism expert Jay Rosen, and many more. Check it out.
Please feel free to leave comments and feedback about the conference here. We’re listening!
xPotomac Introduced: BlogPotomac Legacy and Future Vision
DC’s very own Shana Glickfield (Beekeeper Group) provides the introduction to very first xPotomac. xPotomac is where the digital media future meets businesses. This groundbreaking conference features seven media technologies most likely to impact businesses and marketers in the immediate future.
This smaller intimate conference features limited attendance to ensure maximum learning and networking. Speakers will present in a tight setting with the stage centered in the round or in a horseshoe formation. Each session features a gladiator like format with 15 minutes dedicated to speaking and 30 minutes of question and answer from the audience.
Opening Keynote: Voice Search Changes the Game
The opening keynote at xPotomac was provided by Vanessa Fox. Given how much of the current web — social and content marketing included — revolves around search, voice search represents a game changer, especially given mobile use with Siri and Google Voice Search.
Voice search will have a big impact on businesses who already spend a majority of their online advertising budget on search. Will user generated content factor as strongly when only one or two results may be served via voice? Vanessa Fox is Author of Marketing in the Age of Google and founder of search agency Nine by Blue.
Responsive Design and Experience in the Mobile Era
Ken Yarmosh of Savvy Apps discusses how the most immediate issue facing interactive design right now is the mobile revolution, which forces every marketer to consider multiscreen environments. Consider the five screens that someone may use to access content: Smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop PC and finally Internet-empowered widescreen TVs. How will people use multiple screens simultaneously, including social TV and work?
Ken Yarmosh is the brains behind five “Featured” iOS apps including Agenda Calendar, Buzz Contacts, CaptureNotes, and PBS for iPad.
The Face of the New Groundswell
The consolidation of the social web into corporate media companies combined with the increasing focus by search algorithms on frequency and social validation has harmed individual blogs and voices. Small businesses and entrepreneurs struggle to compete in the face of these virtual machines. Dino Dogan, founder of Triberr, discusses how his network of small voices has found a new way for the groundswell to shine through.
Google Glass, Wearable Computing and Context
Augmented reality — the ability to view real world surroundings with extra data and information provided by applications — continues to evolve. At the forefront is Google’s Project Glass, an augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD).
Project Glass products would provide hands free displays of information currently available to most smartphone users, and allowing for interaction with the Internet via natural language voice commands. Welcome to the Minority Report!
How will Glass change the face of local storefront businesses and tourism? xPotomac Co-Founders Patrick Ashamalla (A Brand New Way) and Geoff Livingston (Author) discuss.
Can Social Scoring Deliver?
In today’s online world social scoring systems like the Klout and Kred matter. For example, some jobs are tied to scores now. Scoring systems encourage businesses and marketers to build wide networks to foster reach and create the perception of influence.
But does this kind of influence actually deliver results? xPotomac Co-Founder Shonali Burke answers.
How Will Digital Ubiquity Impact Marketers?
Digital Ubiquity is a farsighted concept that ties together many threads throughout the featured technologies. Marketing futurist Greg Verdino tackles this difficult topic.
Says author Adam Greenfield on the topic, “It’s really the emergence of a computing without computers, where information processing is almost imperceptible, but everywhere around us; smart buildings, smart furniture, smart clothing, and even smart bathtubs. Networked street signs and self-describing soda cans. Gestural interfaces like those seen in Minority Report. The RFID tags now embedded in everything from credit cards to the family pet.”
The Visual Revolution
Videos and photos have become the primary content form of the mobile era, replacing text with easily communicated ideas and shared experiences From infographics and pictures on smartphones to increasingly visual social networks (Instagram, SnapChat, Pinterest) and video chats, developing visual creative is becoming a new challenge for communicators.
Hear TechCocktail executive Jen Consalvo discuss this burgeoning trend.
What will this surreal computing environment be like? How can we prepare businesses for it?
Closing Keynote: Big Data Threatens Privacy
Updates, emails, webinars, meetings all provide small insights into our customers lives. Together, they provide a composite picture that allows us to target market and nurture leads through automation technologies.
Yet as companies move to automate the sales funnel and better harness leads throughout the process, consumer privacy concerns loom. Further, in an automated algorithmic world will we become homogenized?
Andrew Keen, author of Digital Vertigo and Cult of the Amateur, will examine how the big data movement challenges society, businesses and individuals alike in this closing keynote.
A version of this post ran originally on the xPotomac site.