Advertising Age Proves that Bloggers Can Sit at Large Tables

As most of you know, Ad Age invited some bloggers to their offices in New York a couple weeks ago to talk about the Power 150, the future of Ad Age and the broader social media landscape. Being the interweb powerhouse that I obviously am, of course I was invited.

I won't drone on about the details, but after all the discussion about how Ad Age needs to change their content to suit our needs, I can't help but think they need to focus on their core product more than anything else. That's not to say they shouldn't use and improve the Power 150, continue blogging over digital next and continue to cover the digital advertising and social media landscape. They should for sure. But I don't feel a lack of social media perspectives.

It is literally impossible for me to keep up with the instructive and informative voices that are here now. And that doesn't even count all the shit blogs! (Don't worry, I'm not talking about you).

What I do expect to hear from them is a reflection of what executives are thinking about. I do want to hear about how recessions affect both the agency and the consumer marketplace. And frankly, I'd probably never bore you to tears with Macy's localized strategy, but it is useful information for me to have when I walk into a boardroom.

It's important to make your content easily distributed and available, it's important to talk about the new and sexy, but it's just as important to keep up with the shifts in the things that the blogosphere isn't necessarily chatting up. And no it's not an either or proposition, but it can be a fine line between expanding and chasing.

Either way, a big thanks to Jonah and Charlie for bringing us out there, and to the man, the myth, the legend, Todd Andrlik for setting the whole thing up. Unfortunately, after having their pictures appear 3 times in the same Advertising Age, Sean and Armano have both set up their own security details and the collective entourage has now jumped into the double digits.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to get into one of them, though. Maybe as Armano's hat keeper or Sean's director of electrical devices. I'll keep you posted.