Just another function

I love it. Two little gems from the IAB today.

The first was the AGM minutes. Awesome, thanks for sharing kids. Hate to say it - because I know that everyone who is working towards making the IAB something that can be of real benefit to us all have other jobs that they work hard at too - but can these people please talk less and act more please?

Various 'points' brought up in the meeting apparently
- thanks Tom, quite agree that publishers shouldn't price themselves out of the market. Some publishers are changing and altering their prices to the point where I can't qualify putting them on a schedule. The rates go up, but unfortunately click thrus are not going up, and worse, the acquisitions aren't going up. When I can't justify my predicted CPA, I stop placing on that site. It is as simple as that. Search delivers, display continues to increase in price, guess where my budget is heading.
- in reference to the 'more action less talk' one of the points that was mentioned was the need to further the education of those in the industry. A decent month ago I sent my 'work history' in for consideration to be a part of the education sub-committee. Glad to see that it is so important that it requires mention at the AGM but those who want to make a difference and are passionate about it, we're not even told whether or not we've made the cut. Love it.

Step up or move on. Its time that we make this industry mean something.

Then, this afternoon we get our IAB xmas party invitations. Great. Something about 2 people are invited from your organisation. Brilliant. I'm sorry but our agency is one of the few that attend all IAB drinks, and we're even good enough to usually talk to whomever is hosting, or we're willing to buy our own drinks when no one is. It takes more that 2 of us to put together great schedules for our clients. It takes more than 2 of us to brainstorm ideas with publishers. But apparently only 2 of us are worthy of being invited. Just because someone aimed a little too high with the function last year, I'm guessing.

What I think some people have forgotten is that being listed as an IAB member doesn't mean you know anything about the industry. Not being a member doesn't mean you can't make a contribution.

Love elections

It's amazing what comes out around election time, but having the US election run so close to ours, I feel as though it shows how different a presidential campaign is to a priministerial campaign. To start with, how to get people to vote. In the states, they seem to go to quite extreme lengths to get one to vote, including enlisting massive celebrities. The first '5 friends' video


has been viewed almost 3.1 million times, with 5 more friends,
the second video over 1.4 million times. Here in NZ we have some orange guy who we have seen for years trying to get us to vote. Now, granted, different budgets, different countries, different populations and different overall outcome, but surely we can have some interesting/clever/relevant/inspiring creative in the advertising that is forced on us, and not an envelope on screen for (and I am guessing) 8 seconds with a voiceover. Boring!

As an aside, I also like the online that they are rolling out... way to work in your audiences line of sight.

I get it, I'm a geek

But I don't mind that I'm a geek. I can freely admit it. I am happy with the fact that when, on Monday morning when I logged in to check analytics, I was surprised and delighted to find that analytics took on a whole new life of its own. YAY!

Google continues to be my favourite thing in the whole wide world. Of all things in this world that you can rely on being right and true and perfect in everyway I thought possible, it continues to amaze me in the different ways that Google can make my life better. I love the new layout of the accounts overview. Just beautiful. Confirmation that my sites are on the up and up, bliss. Seeing that one of my sites is 561% up on traffic year on year. I don't think a geek could ask for more.

Thanks Google. You were the shining light of my week.