You sit in front of a Large Widescreen G5. Desirous of Core Duo 2 24", when u only possess the thickr, smallr 20" IBM first edition. Joined like a Siamese Twin is Ibook roaming on wifi, not the black 13" Intel powered random shutdown syndrome version. Each day you make sure u see some ocean and produce endorphins + adrenalin = more ability to work on the evening shift, when the US market news starts RSS'ing.
Artificially created time periods are pre-planned for stealth Melbourne and Sydney missions, with machines replaced with humans for 48 hours. To progress one's business requires internal technical execution and focus, plus disproportionately end to end business development focus - There is no corporate security.
So last night was Clickaholics. Getting there early on the train reminded me of Year 11 Melbourne High - The Station was one of the first places (not counting Checkpoint Charlie - but thats another whole hiphouse Prahran story) we used to go out to. Elsternwick-Prahran : 8 minute train ride on the Sandy Line.
There was about a 60% success rate in getting into The Station especially if you were early and had that special birth certificate with linking photo ID. The Station used to have bands. Now it had a Nintendo Wii to giveaway for the lucky punter. Free beer for a startup on a budget also helped retain funds for breakfast this am.
"
The Sydney Clickaholics was so big, so crowded. I'm sharing a room with.. at the Novotel. I'm from Sydney. Every1 was bunched really close together at the Sydney one."
I'm outside listening to the
latest episode of Keith and the Girl which I'd downloaded for the ride in - classic episode with the couple arguing about "
his" drinking, and "
her" 'tiptowing' around the elephant in the room. "
It's when you shutdown that we get most annoyed." The Cave baby. De Ja memoire, Greville Street full of hipsters going home, retail owners and assistants closing down stores and pondering their alter egos.
Entering early, I wasn't sure if the first step I need to make was an honest and contrite admission of my problem. I was a clickaholic. I am a clickaholic. The small group laughed and nodded as they have many times en rote in meeting. "
This place is full of media buyers."
"
We're not a sponsor. We're the coordinator. Clickaholics is just like a good thing. So we put it on. It's not like we're going to bore people with presentations no way. Sponsors provide free beer and wii."
A room of full of online media buyers is a beautiful thing if you ask me. ("
I've heard what you have been doing and it's great, but I dont really understand it, so you will need to explain it to me one day. Just not now.") Online advertising is the bread that will be filling up alot of seed and vc deals before the public and private equity main course - even if you are already half full because you ate too much bread. "
Alot more ad revenue comes of Melbourne radio market anecdotally than online on a radio company vs online basis, but they say online advertising is worth $1b, growing at 60% per annum and bigger than radio."
My clickaholicism was not required; There was more an atheist digital orientation, in which online is just part of the media mix. The Reasons You Will Hate me
Meredith Festival and the Ferris Wheel "Eye" generated more artificially created endorphins to some of the campaign manager creatives leading a full 20something lifestyle : "
It's about the people man. The Music is secondary!" - Online advertising commissions just fund the camping.
Like a crunking puppy dog happy @ family XMAS party - the IBM Thinkpad, that Utilitarian Socialist Tool of Firewall Boredom, required excessive manipulation pre-people turning up to get the projector beaming the the event benefactors onto the wall. Sponsors are good when someone gets a Wii and free liquid is provided creating the same outcome.
At 15 minutes fashionably late from the office at 715pm company affiliated groups of two and three entered the Noah's Clickaholic Ark. Advertising sellers AKA "
The Networks" would introduce themself -
"
I'm Sam. I work for... and what do you do ?" ("U
nemployed". "S
tartup". "A
ussie Blog Search Engine". "
What ?" "
gnoos.com.au" "
How do you spell that ?" "
you can say the g or u cannot say the g. Your call." "
That's great. How do you make money from blogs ?" "
Um,
ads and license technology". "But,
I haven't seen any blogs with ads on them." "
Well it's a free web page and you can deliver ads onto the page" "Oh,
like affiliate advertising." "I get it, the other day a L'oreal ad came out of the page and it was like video, and it totally came out of the page" "
Yeah, that's rich media advertising and costs $70 per thousand ads, and doesnt have anything to do with blog ads, although you could deliver rich media ads on blogs") Entrepreneur withdraws to the background and lets the comfortable volley proceed :
Ad Buyer : "
We're looking for 2 media planners, and looks like we will need to recruit from the traditional media industry, we are just writing our Adnews job sec now. We gotta think outside the box."
Ad Seller : "
I can't talk much about it but we're about to announce a deal with a substantial company" alternated with "Did you hear about our deal with substantial company y ?"
It's the kind of event you hear disparate information ranging from Google recruiting a GM for their New Zealand business to the economics of kids content online circa 2006. And you meet people who give you their card and expect yours back. You comply. Not sure why. Excuses are made to go the bathroom and the procession continues.
People who were rumoured to come (AL:) dont. Those you spent every day with for years during the "
Old Days" ("they're back. they're back. aren't they ? I'm just going to sit tight until the right opportunity comes along. I'm not going to jump too early.") are reconnected with. Nothing like finding out retrospective information.
I didn't plan the train trip back perfectly; I left 5 minutes before the Big Wii Shower Draw, walked up to Chapel Street with da-switz co-wingman and missed the train. Luckily, 36 minutes left to go of planned serendipity on the Keith and the Girl podcast and Chemda is saying "
Sometimes girls just need to get things off their chest. To say it." Yup.
Llo on Perez : "
I haven't had a drink in seven days. Or anything
. I'm not even legal to, so why would I? I don't drink when I go to clubs. I drink with my friends at home, but there's no need to. I feel better not drinking. It's more fun. I have Red Bull. I didn't feel bad before. I never felt bad. I just wanted to, like, find a balance. I was out too much. I was too caught up. I mean, I'm 20 years old. I was off from work, I was getting ready to start a film, and I was like going out just to get it out of my system. I was going out too much and I knew that, and I have more to live for than that. I don't want to be written about at these clubs with these people. I work, I act, I have a living. That's what I do every day. I work every single day."
Clickaholics 12 Steppn. 1. We admitted we were
powerless over clicking, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a
online advertising campaign greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our wii's and our lives over to the care of
The Web as we understood Her.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our client's current online media schedules.
5. Admitted to The Client, to our Campaign Managers and to our Linkedin profiles, and to another human being on AMM the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have Google remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Marissa Mayer to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all publishers we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such publishers wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them
or their Amex.10. Continued to take personal inventory of current campaign clickthroughs and post click analysis and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with Google, ninemsn, Yahoo7 as we understood Him and Her, praying only for Wii and knowledge of His and or Her will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to clickaholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
