Ego Spy Report: Iowa AMA Meeting, December 1.

This is the first of hopefully many EGO SPY REPORTS on local events of interest to the Iowa creative community. This report was provided by a volunteer anonymous Egotist spy who attended the event. If you are interested in joining our EGO SPY NETWORK, learn more here.

The typical American Marketing Association meeting usually consists of the same group of people that all know each other and meet once a month over a mediocre lunch to listen to someone speak for about 30 minutes on something that should take about 2 hours. When I saw that this meeting was EXTENDED, I was convinced to see if it was worth my hard earned money. So my skeptic self settled in for the ride.

Besides the lunch still being mediocre, the rest of the meeting exceeded my expectations. The crowd was the biggest I have seen and the room was actually set up so I could eat, take some notes and face the speaker without dropping the crumbs from my bread on my neighbor’s lap.

As for the speakers, well, they kept my attention for the entire meeting; which is hard to do with my self diagnosed ADD.

Major points of interest from Rebecca Herold, aka The Privacy Professor:*
1. There are over 100 million tweets per day – I think Des Moines is responsible for 23 million and Justin Beiber is responsible for the rest
2. The U.S. Library of Congress saves every single tweet, even if they are deleted – note to self next time I have a beer and decide to tweet something
3. Research has proven that elementary students that use some form of social media have improved learning and cognitive skills – I’m going to leave that one alone…
4. UK lawyers have said that 20% of divorces have cited facebook as a reason for the split – Did you really think she wouldn’t find out what you posted on there? Duh
5. Once something is posted on the web, it’s there FOREVER

Major points of interest from Nathan Wright (who is 6’2’’ tall):
1. He sold his soul on eBay for $46 – and the character that bought it photographed the travels of Nathan’s soul – creepy…
2. Social media is the #1 online activity – can you guess what #2 is? If you don’t know then I am not going to tell you
3. The Department of Defense created the internet – I thought Al Gore did that
4. TV is going to be the next social platform so you can tweet during a show on the screen! – I think some people in DSM should not be allowed to do this (You know who you are, over tweeters)
5. If Nathan is OBSESSED, it must be good. For example, your vehicle could be the next mobile device, with apps.

*In case you couldn’t figure it out, I added my own comments.

So, my message to the AMA is this:
The speakers you have been bringing in lately have been pretty interesting. The food, eh, it’s hotel food so my expectations aren’t very high. The only other complaint is more for the people of Des Moines that attend these events. Networking does not mean talking to the people you came with. Get off your butt and meet someone new. You never know where that connection could take you.