Silicon Valley Takeaways

I spent this past week in the Bay Area (San Francisco & Silicon Valley), spending half a day walking the expo hall at ad:Tech, a full day with a vertical ad network and various meetings with an online couponing company, a proximity marketing company, a printer ink refill franchisor, attended a "Tweet-Up" and had lunch with mobile marketing/local directional media expert. Interspersed with all this was watching some of local Bay Area news and absorbing my surroundings.


Besides acknowledging the fabulous weather & wonderful scenery, here are my Top 10 Takeaways (not in any particular order):

10. The Information coming through the Internet Fire Hose is overwhelming & needs advanced filtering

9. Not everyone in Silicon Valley is using Twitter

8. Traditional media is accelerating its efforts to figure out how to leverage all the new ways to communicate and advertise. Targeting & Transparency will win the day.

7. Most people in downtown SF walk with their heads down staring at their mobile device only looking up at street corners & when an impending pedestrian on pedestrian collision seems imminent.

6. I love coffee but seem to love it even more when there's coffee on every corner

5. There are a lot of new digital companies (displaying at ad:Tech) with solutions looking for problems with low odds of finding them.

4. Scale is truly a fleeting commodity

3. The out of work, under employed, laid off people and smart recent college graduates looking for work out there is nearly epidemic.

2. Proximity marketing has an incredible future as more people wear their Bluetooth devices more often.

1. Tweet-Up = A New Social Norm/Marketing Opportunity