I wake up about 5:00 a.m. to get ready for my train into NYC. As much as I love the city, I’m a full-on country girl. Roots in Texas. I like things quiet. I choose to live “upstate.” I like to spend my nights sleeping in a room that isn’t permeated with the noise of ambulances, irritated taxi drivers, or impatient Westechesterites trying to race home for 15 minutes of quality time with the kids after three rounds of dirty martinis.

I like my days filled with the stimuli of the city, but my nights are best filled with not much more than crickets chirping. Therefore, I live in what’s commonly known around the city as “the sticks.” I make no apologies. And I have closets.

But as quiet as things are around the house, I can’t help but be awakened lately by the nagging question in my head that somehow can’t be satiated: “When is the damn iPhone 5 coming out?”

You see, I held onto my iPhone 3G for a little too long. And like a rotten banana, it’s way past its expiration date.

I tend to get gadgets on or around generation 2. As much as I’d been dreaming of an iPhone years before it was a beam in Steve Jobs’ eye, when it came out I did my typical gadget reticence dance and didn’t pounce. Wanted to give it some time to simmer. I’m a feature ho and wanted a device that “has it all.” (I tell myself not having the cut-and-paste feature was the clincher.) I waited for about a year or so and finally got the 3G. I was in love.

But alas, as all good love affairs tend to dissolve, so did my feelings for the 3G.

Lately it’s a ball and chain. I want to surf the internet. It whines about having a headache. I want to download updates to apps, it’s having “that time of the month.” I want to Shazam something, and it “had a hard day at work.” As the 3G limps along, I’m bursting blood vessels.

So at 3:00 a.m. when I should be fast asleep, getting juiced up for another day in the concrete jungle, I’m Googling “iPhone 5 release date.” Yeah, thank me Googlers for not having to type in the entire search term. Because I’ve been typing it pretty much daily since about April.

With all that late-night article reading, here’s what I can tell you with some amount of certainty:

The iPhone 5 is coming out soon and it’s going to be linked to the iCloud launch. Yeah, duh.

Here’s what I can tell you with a little certainty:

Verizon’s CEO hinted that it will be launched in September.
Most industry observers think it’s going to be September or October.
A couple of wet blankets think it’s going to be a November launch.
There’s probably not going to be any dorky 4GS.
Someone claims to have seen a somewhat obscured iPhone 5 prototype on a train.
The iCloud launches in “the fall” so it’s assumed the iPhone 5 will be launched at the same time.
If I was a gambling woman (and on occasion I am) I’d say it would be a September announcement and a late September, early October launch.

So far the best round-up of the “when is the iPhone 5 release” question is this video that was posted on YouTube on August 10th:

What do you think? Placing any bets on the release date?

Oh! Before you leave, I could use some help in getting my SXSW session voted up if you can spare a few seconds.

There are 4500 proposals so every vote counts! I just need your thumbs up on the panelpicker page.

Here’s the link: “The Social Graph is a Bloated Corpse.” (the name of my session). Read all about it on the link. Thanks for the thumbs up and hope to see you there!

We all want to watch that ROCKIN shock-and-awe presentation at SXSW that everyone raves about, right?

While some other sucker is stuck in a session with a mumbler, or picked the panel with the presenter too hung over to show up (yeah, it happens)… there are the lucky few in a sleeper hit sucking up the future with a fire hose.

How many SXSW attendees get lucky enough to choose those elusive few sessions that deliver the magic matrix of education, entertainment, and awe — the ones that draw you in and don’t let go until the next session is banging on the door?

I’m working on making the number of those lucky attendees a little bit bigger.

“The Social Graph is a Bloated Corpse” is my first submission for speaking at SXSW. My intention is to create something that goes beyond the deck, to take “interactive” to heart and create a SXSW INTERACTIVE experience.

My session is about the death of the social graph and the rise of what I’m calling the “Real-Time Graph.” I’ll be answering questions like:

Is the social graph losing relevance?
Is there another way to approach the graph that changes how content engages with us?
What narrow range of content will consumers value when social clutter becomes overwhelming?
What’s the difference between content that’s valuable and content that takes more than it gives back?
Where did Facebook miss the boat and how can developers and entrepreneurs seize the real-time opportunity?
What is a “Real-Time Graph” and how can it create a richer social experience?
How does a Real-Time Graph change the way we live in a social world?

VOTE NOW!! I just need your thumbs up vote on the official voting page on the SXSW Panel Picker—> “The Social Graph is a Bloated Corpse” (Voting ends Friday, September 2, 2011 at 11:59 PM CST.) Feel free to make comments, too. The judges take into account how much interaction there is on the panelpicker page.

Oh and… I’ll be giving a significant, jealousy-inspiring PRIZE to the session attendee with the best zombie make-up (costume optional, although after some of those SXSW parties it’ll be hard to tell who’s trying and who woke up 10 minutes before rolling in). Yeah, it’s like that.

Vote if you care. Go if you DARE.

—Michelle

It’s a sunny day outside. And I’m the kind of girl who loves to be outdoors doing something active on pretty July days when I’m serendipitously not in the office. I’m pretty much a gear-head and I think the only adventure sport I’m not fully equipped to engage in is probably ice climbing. (Never say never.) But somehow as I look out the window at a gorgeous day, I’m sitting behind the computer. I could be biking or hiking or kayaking. But here I am. Reading about brands. Tweeting about brands. And wondering why I can’t tear myself away for just an hour to play.

At this moment I have déjà vu, remembering life as a 9 year-old girl buried inside a magazine, indoors on a Texas summer day while the neighborhood kids jumped through sprinklers and chased each other around the block.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

This isn’t the first time I ever found myself trading off a pretty day in favor of something mentally blingy.

I’ve had a love of brands for as long as I can remember. As a child I was mesmerized by every nuance and every detail. From the shiny faux metal bezels that wrapped imprinted car logos on dashboards, to the TV commercials where carefully-placed crescendos played at the precise moment the product flashed on screen. Anything that told a story in short, bite-sized morsels that could keep my ADD brain satiated and free from boredom had my undivided attention.

Due to a genetic glitch which allowed me to effortlessly memorize at a single pass, I had most of the popular slogans and jingles in TV commercials swirling in head, probably to the chagrin of friends who had to listen to me randomly weave them into conversation. I distinctly remember losing a would-be boyfriend in second grade when he whispered to me from across the aisle to “give him” flashcards and I sauntered over, slapped them on his desk, and quipped “You WAAAANT it? You got a Toy-o-ta.”

That was a short-lived relationship. These days he’s a friend on Facebook so I guess the damage wasn’t all that substantial.

Looking back, my preoccupation with brands was probably more symptomatic of OCD than a conscious understanding of brand association. But the result was the same nonetheless. Decades later I write a blog about brands.

I remember consuming my family’s magazine subscriptions like they were candy. Hours upon hours of my childhood were spent with my nose between sheets of paper. There was only one thing that could keep me from galavanting around the neighborhood on my bike or bullying the neighborhood boys on a sunny day. And that was those glossy magazines, and the sexy, faraway world they captured on every page.

Visiting the dentist was made almost bearable due to the monster selection of reading material. And I had caveman teeth so I spent a lot of time at the dentist. A lot of waiting room magazine time. It’s a miracle I didn’t become an interior decorator. Or a National Geographic photographer. Or a marine commando. (It was Texas. Didn’t everyone read Soldier of Fortune?)

When I was a kid, my parents drove a Buick. Or at least my mom did. My dad drove a Blazer. We were apparently Chevy people. (GM in a pinch). The blazer was so cool and trucky and masculine. But I barely remember riding in it except for the occasional Saturday when my dad would attach his boat to it and haul us to the shore (where it would just break down in about twenty minutes anyway). I still remember the brand.

But yeah. The Buick was the car I spent the most time in. And that’s where I recall most of my first brand experiences.

I remember hours of watching the world go by from the cushiony red velvet seats of that old Buick. First as a child in small-town South Texas where most of the brands I saw were John Deere tractors rolling across fields of cotton, or the big red Texas stop signs of Dairy Queen.

At nine years old, my family moved to Dallas and that back seat became witness to a whole other galaxy of brands. I remember hours of commuting into and out of downtown with my parents. Them to work, me and my brother and sister to school. Time well spent in that Buick, exposed to countless billboards for Gilby’s gin and Marlboro cigarettes.

Those moustached Marlboro men reminded me of Tom Selleck. That was a good thing.

And this was Dallas. So of course there were boards for Neiman Marcus, Lord & Taylor, and Cadillacs. And 24-hour bail bonds.

Advertising was everywhere. Advertising for whatever might stoke the material fires of Generation Jones. Big-haired Dallas women were the original “real housewives.” In the fourth grade I remember a classmate’s mother picking her up from the playground in a full-length mink coat. In a Cadillac. My guess is she saw the billboards, too.

My more down-to-earth mom worked at a radio station and I had to spend about an hour at her office before school every day. The selection of magazines at a radio station totally trumped the dentist’s office. D Magazine, Texas Monthly, and The Dallas Morning News were the windows to the outside of my 10 year-old world. I’m half sure it was more about the slick advertising than the articles about Lakewood socialites or where the governor dined when he visited Dallas.

More likely, I was transfixed by the beauty, sophistication, and perfection of Benson & Hedges menthol smokers and that hip crowd over at Benetton.

My brother and sister sat around bickering, but I was transfixed by the smorgasboard of what years later would come to be known as “content.” Yes. Advertising is content. It always has been. It’s just that now brands are finally getting it.

As much as brands in the past have been focused on selling product, what they didn’t realize was the importance of telling the story. Sure, brands have always been storytellers and the best have embraced it since the dawn of time. But now, it’s more critical than ever that the focus is off the “bling” and onto the content, onto the brand stories.

And I’m betting there are plenty of wide-eyed girls ready to be mesmerized by them. Although they should really find a little more time to go outside and show those neighborhood boys how to throw a football.

What were your first brand experiences?

What were your favorite brands as a child?

How did your early exposure to brands affect you?

How do you think today’s children will be affected by brands?

One of my clients is a former employer and agency President & CCO who’s now heading up a start-up incubator and management consulting firm. Back when we worked at the agency together, our projects mysteriously started including more strategic work.

This was not the natural progression for the typical advertising agency, but we both shared a love of strategy. Even though my day-to-day role was Creative Director, I made it a point to include (unsolicited) strategic recommendations, brand observations, and rationales in every assignment that came across my desk. In a lot of ways it changed the course of both the agency and my career.

As much as I love the “big idea” and the creative process that goes along with it, what’s far more thrilling to me is understanding the purpose of the broader campaign, the marketing levers, the consumer motivations, and a brand’s inner workings… and THEN distilling it all into a compelling creative message. We weren’t surprised when more and more start-ups and entrepreneurs requested the agency’s input well before they were ready for a brand or an ad campaign to be developed. And that’s the way we liked it.

I left the agency in 2005, but with management blessing carried the agency brand to the Northeast as a boutique consulting firm, where I shifted it toward a more strategic and digital focus… with creative services continuing to be a core capability, but “held hostage” by strategy. (eg. I don’t just “design a logo” or just “do a commercial.” I don’t come that easy.)

My former boss and I still have the opportunity to work together occasionally as client and agency, mostly on start-ups that need acute strategy, simplification of business problems, or streamlined processes.

After at least seven or eight years of working with start-ups here and there, I came up with 10 recommendations for marketing a start-up. I shared it as a guest post on Alicia Arenas’s business blog during her March Marketing Madness series. Check it out here.

A funny thing happened that I didn’t really expect. This winter I took on one of the most profound and challenging projects I’ve ever encountered — developing the global social media program from the ground up for a $400 million a year division of a $4 billion company. Everything from analyzing the business model and devising social strategies for readying the company for the non-paywall social age, to outlining an execution plan for roughly 20 communities. (Yes, twenty!)

While at the same time addressing consumer engagement preferences within the scope of 4,000+ products in more than a dozen sub-categories. And figuring out how to thoughtfully integrate a full range of departments and people into the program. Not to mention digital workspace, monitoring (and integrating social into that whole Salesforce and Eloqua morass). And did I mention it has both B2B and B2C operations?

It’s a good thing I’m into mysteries wrapped in riddles.

In the beginning I had visions of blog posts and sugar plums dancing in my head. This was going to rock. I’d blog about the experience all along the way… going into detail on everything from the social-vantage market analysis process, the weaving of social strategies into the business funnel, consumer social psychographics, integrating tactics into the closed measurement loop… outlining how to organize many meaty slides into glorious social media decks… and elaborating on the ideas behind some 16 core strategies addressing everything from the future of search to end-run maneuvers, safe harbors to social process.

Community strategies, content strategies, search strategies, business funnels, business models, metrics and monitoring. It was going to be a blog post buffet.

But then that funny thing happened.

I couldn’t write.

Focusing so intently as I was (I joke with my client) on “solving all the problems of the world” with his account, I found that the more I dug into the project and the more I was exposed to what became the Guinness Book of World Records’ biggest business pretzel, the less I wanted to write about social media and the more I wanted to just distill and gestate.

It really was a case of “the more you know the more you realize you don’t know.” And to characterize the depth of the great social media unknown, I’ve been writing on marketing and social media publicly for about four years and before that I’d worked in advertising agencies, marketing departments, and media companies since I was 19 years old. I was “engaging” in social when AOL had less than a million subscribers, and inadvertently doing real social media in 2003 before we knew it needed a name.

And here I am working on the Holy Grail Social Media Project and instead of grasping the blogging brass ring, I feel like King Arthur clomping around the English countryside with coconuts instead of horses. There’s so much to say and share about the social media sausage-making process from the trenches, but in the moment of development it felt… well, premature. Despite the years of marketing and media immersion, I felt oddly unequipped to communicate it in a way that would make sense of it all.

There was so much to assimilate… how could I stitch all my thoughts together into something cohesive when a lot of the puzzle pieces were still in various stages of materializing?

But hey. I’m a blogger. I wanted to write about it anyway. So I tried. I pushed the pen. But somehow my higher self knew it wasn’t time. My project was in full gear, but my blog post writing was in full stall.

Three months of brain-twisting hard work, and the final strategic recommendation and execution plan was presented to several levels of management last week. (Happy to report it was very, very well-received). And now, the little voice that wouldn’t let me write and wouldn’t let me share has finally relented.

As I sweep back the cobwebs of the admin dashboard of The BrandForward Blog, I look back at the half dozen blog posts I started during the project development, I see clearly now that they wouldn’t have been fully baked if I’d overcome the writer’s block and pushed them out anyway. Sure, I could have written short, Seth Godin-style posts about a single little topic that doesn’t need much elaboration. Stretch the copywriting muscles just to get something on the graph.

But that’s not me. I’m in exploration mode, in heavy learning and discovery and not going to hesitate to admit it. A career is better served always moving forward and ahead of the curve, which means you rarely get the luxury of knowing all the answers. But you’re definitely always searching for them, and once in awhile maybe even have them toward the front.

And anyway, I don’t like to say (or blog) something if I’m not prepared to back it up with a well-rounded, logical rationale. And the soup just hadn’t simmered enough.

There’s something unexpected that happens when you face a deep challenge that draws on everything you’ve learned over your career, and adds another layer on the journey to your next frontier. You feel like an astronaut that used to be so content to gaze back down at Earth from your little bubble window… until you turned around and looked into the vastness of space and realized what you’ve known is such a tiny speck compared to what’s out there.

Sure, you’re one of the lucky ones that made it off the Earth. You’re an astronaut, after all. Building Facebook pages while old schoolers were still building brochures. Designing communities while most are still designing printed newsletters. But it doesn’t matter how much we know about social media and marketing today. When you push past the inner planets and start approaching deep space, it’s obvious there’s a whole universe we’ve just barely touched.

I still love the day-to-day of social media… the tweeting… and the liking… the sharing. But I can’t help feeling it’s a little like hanging out in lower orbit. I’ll still do it… it’s far better than being stuck on the ground gazing up at the stars. But not nearly as rewarding as quietly facing the great unknown.

Have you ever slowed your social media activity at some point? Why?

Did your perspective on social media change when you returned?

What did you learn while you were away?

I just got off the phone with a business consultant I’ve done dozens of campaigns for. He’s one of those guys that makes it fun to dive deep on every topic from brand positioning to operations to product strategy and all points between. And he always feigns amusement at my infamous analogies and metaphors.

So he calls me today to go over a situation where a manager in one of the start-ups he counsels came up with a promotional campaign and was adamant it launch ASAP. It sucked. As I listened in horror to the mishmash of amateur concepting, dismissal of culture, political pandering, and lack of strategy I was almost speechless.

After a few seconds of assessing the ridiculosity, out came my unlacquered assessment of the situation:

The guy thinks he’s doing MacGyver marketing, but the truth is it’s MacGRUBER marketing.

Sharing my love of campy SNL characters-turned-movie-stars, the consultant chuckled and agreed.
But we both realized this was no laughing matter. A principal in a promising start-up was trying to prematurely self-medicate his marketing, and the result was going to cause brand damage before the company even has a chance to make its first impression in the marketplace.

I’m not even sure MacGyver could duct tape his way out of this.

Everyone in the marketing industry has probably faced that moment when something has to happen and it has to happen fast. And with very little budget.

The best marketers embrace those moments, seeing it as a chance to show how brilliantly MacGyver they can be.

Unfortunately, the worst marketers also embrace those moments. Not realizing it’s a chance for everyone to see how shamelessly MacGruber they can be.

Wondering if someone you know is a MacGyver marketer or a MacGruber marketer? Let’s see how each handles basic marketing scenarios:

Strategy

MacGyver: MacGyver may not always have the exact tools he needs to solve a problem, but what he lacks in available resources he makes up by understanding the problem at its core level and approaching a solution strategically. Once he knows what he wants to accomplish, he gathers everything he can and sets out to solve the problem, simply and brilliantly.

McGruber: Instead of approaching a problem or situation by asking what ultimately needs to be achieved, MacGruber looks around for what’s handy and convenient, and tries to solve the problem before truly understanding the desired outcome. Consequently, he’ll come up with a flashy way to pry open a door… while the bomb is still counting down. He may have solved a problem. But it wasn’t THE problem. Which just leaves a bigger problem down the road.

Decision Making

MacGyver: When faced with a marketing situation, there’s always short-term and long-term repercussions to address. MacGuyver would realize it’s much easier to run from a ticking time bomb, but he’d also realize that while he’s hauling butt back to the Jeep, the bomb will blow up a perfectly good building. And whoever’s inside. MacGuyver won’t trade long-term outcomes for a short-term fix. He clearly understands the difference between duct tape and Band-aids.

MacGruber: For MacGruber, everything happens in the moment. And that’s how he prefers to handle situations. MacGruber marketers rarely work against a big boy marketing plan (if they even think they need one), they rarely see the core value of the product, and as much as they love to talk about the consumer they rarely do what it takes to understand them. Instead of having vision and prescience, MacGrubers are too focused on the present to think clearly and make strategic decisions.

Focus

MacGyver: MacGyver marketers know where to put their attention. Even though they may be faced with an emergency situation once in awhile, they’re always focused on the big picture. They understand that marketing objectives drive everything they do. And any time they’re put in a scenario where someone is freaking out, asking for things that aren’t on-strategy, or demanding that something/anything gets done fast, they always refocus the team and give clear guidance on true priorities.

MacGruber: MacGruber fancies himself a marketing hero. His Twitter picture probably has him in a cape. Forget the hard work, exposure to smart marketers, and and years of experience that should have happened behind-the-scenes. MacGruber wants to be seen as a marketing pro NOW. And what better way than to blurt out ideas and solutions on the fly without having a clue which strategy he’s working against. Objectives and strategies are just things that get in the way of him demonstrating his manic ADD “creativity,” and using recently-acquired vocabulary words like authenticity, engagement, and influence.

Reactiveness

MacGyver: MacGyver knows there’s more to a situation than what onlookers can see. So when helpless victim #1 screams in his ear that the temperature in the room is too hot, and helpless victim #2 demands that he fix the thermostat before putting out the fire, MacGyver has the confidence and composure to respond. MacGyvers make sure they don’t let someone coerce them into spending time putting out fires when there’s a bomb to deal with.

MacGruber: On the other hand, MacGruber’s lack of strategic thinking forces him to live in a reactive state, thriving in crisis situations and jumping every time someone yells “FIRE!” Because when something’s not on fire, his time is spent looking up new vocabulary words or harvesting crops on Farmville. MacGruber’s highest strategic achievement is realizing that allowing a crisis to happen lets him be reactive rather than proactive. Which makes him look busy and effective. Exactly what he is not.

Monitoring

MacGyver: MacGyver knows where to invest his effort. Abandoned buildings near military bases. Suspicious airplane hangars. Inside burning buildings. These are the places MacGuyver knows his expertise will have the biggest impact. This is where MacGyver goes. He does the legwork, researches the situation, and always manages to be where the action is, right when he’s needed.

MacGruber: MacGruber believes he’s the center of the universe. He can’t be bothered with monitoring programs that might point out that his target demographic isn’t on Google Buzz or that they aren’t playing Scramble anymore. In fact, he’d rather not deal with anything that reminds him there’s a target demographic. He just likes to implement his ideas, and avoids any facts or figures (or people) that might shoot them down.

ROI

MacGyver: MacGyver knows at the end of the day, all his hard work and duct tape expenses should be paying off. Lives should be saved. Buildings not exploded. Mullets in fashion. MacGyver doesn’t want to be racing around getting cats out of trees, so he makes sure his efforts are resulting in real success, not just good PR.

MacGruber: Meanwhile, MacGruber thinks everything he does is worthwhile. The fact that he’s active and doing something is what matters to him. Job descriptions are irrelevant. Measurement be damned. When he feels busy, he feels valuable. And based on the damage McGruber can do when he’s busy, there’s very little need for the baddies MacGyver routinely deals with. McGruber brings plenty of chaos upon the universe all by himself.

What are some other ways MacGruber marketers gum up the works?

Do MacGruber marketers realize what they’re doing?

I’m not the kind of girl who sits at the front of the class. Okay maybe when I was a kid. (Better access for when you want to challenge the teacher.) But nowadays my style is a bit more subtle. I usually like to slink into the middle of a session. Or maybe the back on a bad hair day. But last Wednesday at Ad:Tech NY, I made sure to find a seat early so I could get right up close. Dennis Crowley was going to be speaking after all. And I wasn’t about to miss him.

But I sorta made a mistake. In my eagerness to not look like a drooling Bieber fan I didn’t swoop on him before his session started. Instead I decided to delay gratification.

Meanwhile tweeting my awe of his futuristic fabulousness, braggardly twitpic’ing blurry stage shots of him, anxiously awaiting the moment I could meet the man… the legend… the creator of freakin’ Foursquare!

And then it was over. Thirty minutes into this “one-hour” Ad:Tech session, some handlers whisked him away, telling us “Oh! This is a split session where the next thirty minutes will be a panel!”

Crafty buggers. What now?

Do I skulk past the huge crowd from my cherry perch on the mostly empty third row center to chase him down? Or do I take my chances by stalking him in the speaker’s lounge later?

Owing to my feigned affection for subtlety, I decided to sit through the panel discussion and try to catch Dennis later. And of course his office is in the city so I could always pull an “I was just in the neighborhood!” on another day. Ever the optimist.

But something interesting happened.

The geo-local mobile marketing panel that followed was the most intense, exciting, riveting thirty minutes of my entire Ad:Tech experience.

It had comedy. It had suspense. It had a protagonist. It had everything.

There were five panelists and a moderator. As the first four panelists started talking, everything they said was typical and expected within the geo-local space. Brands need to blah..blah… focus on turning check-ins into ROI. Brands need to… ahem… create coupons. Brands need to… brace yourself… build their own apps. And then something actually interesting happened.

Seth Priebatsch of SCVNGR opened his mouth.

You have to envision this. A panel of seasoned, buttoned-up suit types throwing around the greatest hits of 2010 marketing lingo. And then 21 year-old Seth. It almost felt like two panels in one. I watched as the four other panelists had their own conversation about cash registers ringing and measurable ROI.

And then I watched Seth talk about experiences, baking in the brand, and killing the coupon.

The panelists were clearly not understanding what Seth was saying, not grabbing onto his words of wisdom, or even acknowledging them. They’d give him his obligatory 30-seconds and jump right back into cash registers and coupons.

Even the moderator was minimizing Seth’s comments, subtly ribbing him about his product.

But I saw rays of light emanating as Seth spoke.

He said he’s on a mission to “kill the coupon.” He said he’s converting game mechanics into real life. He said he wants to bake in the offer and create a brand experience. Seth envisions a world where brands can connect with consumers at a deep level by engaging them, exciting them, and creating a reason for them to love the brand and keep coming back.

Not a new concept in the branding world, so why is it so easy for seasoned marketers to let themselves get blinded by the slew of shiny digital toys and forget the basic principles for connecting the brand with the consumer? It’s nearly unfathomable the word “coupon” is being bandied about in public by people who five years ago wouldn’t be caught dead recommending one.

Coupons are a blip on the radar compared to the future of geo-local mobile strategies. I can understand small businesses wanting the short-term tactical effectiveness of a coupon, and I can even accept that this is a new thing and geo-local coupons are a temporary hot ticket for big brands.

But where is the forward thinking? Where is the creative vision? Where is the risk for reward? Jumping onto the geo-local coupon bandwagon isn’t a risk. Baking a brand experience into the product/offering/promotion is. Creating a coupon instead of doing the creative homework to develop a baked-in experience is… frankly… lazy marketing.

Considering I have clients that will insist on coupons (and I’ll probably end up recommending a few here and there), I’m sure I’ll be asked if coupons are really that awful. When used for a specific short-term strategic goal, no. When used in the place of what should be brilliant, experiential, fresh-baked brand creative, yes.

Back at the geo-local session, I was giddy when I saw a sly smile cross Seth’s face as it became clear the others weren’t getting it… were too wrapped up in last year’s thinking to peek into the future with him.

It seemed like Seth’s fellow panelists and moderator would rather laugh him off the stage (game mechanics? in marketing? for real?!) than address his simple, yet brilliant vision of the future of geo-local mobile.

I have a feeling someone’s going to be doing a lot of laughing. And Seth has a pretty good idea of who it’ll be.

Can “game mechanics” really have a positive impact on marketing?

How long until geo-local check-in apps like Foursquare, SCVNGR, and Gowalla go mainstream?

How do you “bake in” a brand experience that attracts customers without coupons?

October has been a busy month and November already seems to be putting it to shame. After a whirlwind of marketing and social media events over the last 30 days (where I got to meet Gary Vaynerchuk and Robert Scoble, just to name-drop a few), it’s time for the next conference: ad:tech NY.

And this one is going to be good. Like candy store good.

Ad:tech’s sessions are focused on digital advertising with an emphasis on geo-location, couponing, gaming and virtual currency, social campaign monitoring, new technology products, and digital strategy.

I’m literally licking my lips.

With a jam packed schedule of can’t-miss sessions, I’ll be lucky to scrape up enough time to make the expo rounds and count gumballs for a free iPad.

The hardest part was choosing from the deep bench of yummy digital flavors. Too many sessions, too little time. But here’s the verdict. I’ll be live tweeting from:

Virtual Goods & Virtual Worlds: Not a Passing Fad, This Is Big Brand Business

Putting Real People Back Into Marketing—A New Discovery in Human Behavior Promises to Change Marketing Thinking

Keynote Presentation— Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley: Engaging the Geo-Local Consumer

Syncapse Sponsored Workshop: How the World’s Leading Brands are Managing Global Campaigns with the Syncapse Platform

Coupons + Social Media + Mobile: The Digital Future of Promotions

If you haven’t registered, there’s still time to pick up a full conference pass. Or if you just want to go for the networking, expo hall passes are going for $50 until the day before the event. ($100 if you register at the door). For the full schedule of events, check out the ad:tech site:

Mondays immediately take on a magical quality when the first video I happen to watch is something brilliant. All of the sudden, the week has promise. There are still great ideas waiting to be created, and genius has not left the building. No, my Monday morning giddy and rainbows are not a result of a Starbucks overdose. I just love discovering daring use of advertising and technology.

And the New Yorker nailed it with its iPad app ad.

I knew I was in love the second Jason Schwartzman lifted his pillow to reveal he was sleeping on his iPad. I, too have the same relationship with my iPhone and am happy to report that going on three years we’re still in the honeymoon phase.

The ad only got better as Schwartzman took us through his day, attached to the iPad through his offbeat morning rituals, meditations, and even a dip in the pool. All the while, surfing the New Yorker iPad app.

Due to the naked pool romp, I’m guessing an iPad was harmed during the making of this spot. There should be an iPad rights organization looking into that promptly.

The spot was directed by Roman Coppola (he and Schwartzman are cousins), and it has that clean Apple essence of white and brushed blue aluminum. Most backdrops are white on white, and Schwartzman wears pale blue and gray. Nice touch.

Interestingly, Roman Coppola is known more for his directing of music videos. But hey, long-form advertising is the new music video anyway. And just like a squealing teen staying up way past my bedtime watching MTV, I’m now eagerly anticipating the next brilliant iPad app ad.

Just hoping it launches on a Monday.

Being a Creative Director is one of those jobs that drives everyone around you crazy. Let’s face it, you’re always on high receive, you’re addicted to TV, hypnotized by all forms of media, a gadget freak, have no attention span, constantly rushing to and from meetings, and permanently connected to your iPhone. You always have some weird indie band playing on your PowerBook, some trendy drink on your desk, and your clothes rarely match.

Oh. And you’re always always always busy. Damn busy.

Those who enter the office of a Creative Director never know what they’re in for. On a good day they could encounter the frothing mad scientist with the idea of the century. Or on a bad day have something thrown at them.

So you really have to hand it to someone who actually chooses to spend time with a Creative Director. Especially if that brave someone is a 20 year-old who’s intentionally choosing to intern for the Genghis Kahn of the ad world. That really takes some stones. (Typically to be thrown in self-defense.)

But despite the reputation of Creative Directors at large, I’ve had a handful of wide-eyed college students insist they wanted a place in that not-quite-so-comfy chair next to my desk.

We all end up having someone who wants to intern with us at some point. Whether we’re a crazy creative or a harried account person. Someone will be interested in learning from us, or someone managing the intern pool will decide it’s our turn.

So what do you do? With a hectic schedule and more responsibilities than you can count, do you embrace your intern or blow them off?

Me, I’m not of the ilk that prefers my interns fetching coffee, making copies, and playing Farmville. I want them learning and experiencing and walking away from the internship with time under their belts engaged in critical-thinking and creativity.

The very nature of an internship is temporary and doesn’t last very long so it’s important to instill everything you can in a short period of time. Every moment matters.

Sure, go ahead and blow off your interns if you feel like you’re too important or too busy. But all I can tell you is taking your interns for granted is a big mistake.

Don’t relegate them to the boring stuff or blow them off. Don’t shoo them away to surf the net or chit chat in the break room. Keep them right at your desk (or their own nearby) so they can listen, watch, and ask questions. Create projects that give them the opportunity to exercise new skills and aim for excellence.

Somehow it ended up that the times when I’ve had interns it was during extremely stressful, busy periods at the agency. Little did my interns know that the time I was spending with them meant extra hours spent at my desk long after everyone else had gone home for the day. But I wouldn’t trade a minute. I only wish I’d had more to give.

I do stand behind my philosophy of not handing interns the reigns to a brand or letting them run the client’s Twitter or Facebook account, my gripe being that social media for brands should be handled by someone with plenty of brand experience, and management should know better.

But do give interns the opportunity to share and engage in ways that will teach them how to research, analyze, and make judgement calls. If you don’t have projects that encourage them to think, learn, and create… come up with something.

And I’ll tell you why.

Because interns are valuable. They’re valuable because they’re people. People who have taken the initiative to spend their time with you, and who look to you as a mentor and someone they trust for information and guidance.

Be worth it.

And in case that’s not enough, do it because they grow up to be pretty great. You never know when someone who was looking over your shoulder for six months will be sitting across the boardroom from Donald Trump.

Yeah. This happened to me.

My former intern is on NBC’s The Apprentice this season. What are the odds?

Think back to all the “apprentices” you’ve had over the years. If they suddenly became famous or got a prestigious job at a company you want to work for, did you treat them well enough to deserve their gratitude and inclusion? Or will they be rolling their eyes and sharing with their new colleagues what a jerk you were?

Treat every intern like they’re somebody important. Not because of what they can “give you” someday, but because of what they need from you today. As I’m finding out, the time you spend investing in them can come back to you in ways you never imagined.

I got lucky. It’s years later and my former intern is giving me the unbelievable opportunity to personally manage her PR and social media… after the show (and her agreement with NBC) is over. I’ll have a “celebrity” personal branding client as I help her pursue her dream of being a global advocate of educational technology.

And there’s nothing quite as surreal as chit-chatting on the phone with someone you’re going to see on national television later that night.

Still want to blow off your intern?

What are some unique ways to include interns in challenging and interesting projects?

Do you think it’s okay to have interns doing errands and office work?

Do you have a former intern who’s a success story?