Sitting in a lecture hall is not usually my idea of fun. But inVerge 2007, held in Portland last week, kept me glued to my seat in the Gerding Theatre for two full days of presentations by innovators in cross-platform media and marketing. Invergence is a word coined by conference developer Steve Gehlen to describe the dynamics of convergence in today’s increasingly interactive, multi-platform media/marketing landscape. I assisted Steve a bit here and there during conference development, and was seriously impressed by the quality of the program he pulled together in just a few months. All of the presenters are internationally known for their work; less than half came from Portland. They came from companies such as Weiden + Kennedy, MTV, Ensequence, Rentrak, Edleman, Nau and Interpublic Group, and media studies centers such as those at MIT and Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Here are a few soundbites from my notes (not necessarily verbatim speaker quotes):
The consumers are the channel
– Ken Papagan, CEO Rentrak
The product is the system
– Adam Richardson, CEO Frog Design
Media companies never were in control in the mass media era; it was just an illusion. Now it’s clear there is no control.
- Mark Deuze, author of the book Media Work, professor at Leiden University, The Netherlands
OK, slogans are cheap. In fact, these are pretty meaningless without context. But the underlying thinking of these pronouncements and their strategic implications for media and marketing are serious. The world is changing too fast for folks in those fields not to know this stuff. Check in here or at inVergence.com for detailed postings, presentation notes and links to videos on what went down at the conference. A few presenters, and the conference organizer, cite Convergence Culture by MIT professor Henry Jenkins III as a mind-changing book.
Let’s hope the stage is set for an ongoing annual conference that will draw thought leaders from all over the world to Portland each September. Nice job, Steve.