sugarenia.com

So I went to IMC 2007 last Friday. Flew to Athens in the morning, watched all presentations, flew back in the evening, dropped dead on my bed. Here are some quick thoughts:

• Jean-Paul Edwards speaks too quickly – his thoughts were too rushed. But he brought an OMD UK air with him and that was nice.
• Patou Nuytemans‘ presentation was the hit of the day – simple, engaging, fun and up-to-date. Hat tip to her (and Keynote, mrs. Nuytemans was the only Macbook owner among the guests).
• Pantelis Mpakis‘ presentation seemed kinda shallow to me – I enjoyed the Scream TV case study, but well, that’s about it.
• I had some high hopes for mr. Marmarokopos and mrs. Panou presentation – after all, with a title like A Woman’s right to interactivity, why not? I was disappointed though, because it was only a case study on the advertising campaign of a well-known detergent powder – complete with read-through, ugly-graphs slides. Sigh.
• Mr. Stanislas Segard from Doubleclick did not inform us about anything new – but he tried to give us some clues on the future of rich media, so credit where credit is due.
• Mr. Tsolakidis presented us the idea behind BachelorParties.gr, but as well thought their advertising plan was, I cannot get past their kinda ugly design and site bugs.
• I did not like the presentation aka lecture of mr. Antonis Liberis, neither do I agree with some of his sayings. Why? Because his stance against so-called “17-year-olds with silly ideas” was too aggressive and competitive. We Greeks never learn anything from others – we should embrace those youth, not fight them.
• I laughed a lot with mr. Brian Kealy from Microsoft – a very laid back guy, not shy of his Irish origins and a bit foul-mouthed, but very funny. Hit of his presentation: his Microsoft Powerpoint which refused to cooperate. [insert Windows joke here]
• On a relevant note, The worst presentation conducted by one of the overseas guests was better than the best presentation held by a greek guest. In my humble opinion.
• People should really, really stop reading their slides – it’s annoying and boring as hell. I’d prefer some “oohs” and “aahs” here and there than this.
• I hate graphs.

This is not a full review of the day, by all means. Search around in Technorati for more accurate (and less subjective) reviews. It’s just my take on an interesting day.

Sadly, I forgot my photo camera so I have no visual clues of the day (the mobile phone shots were hideous). All in all, it was an inspiring and fun but really, really tiring day, especially difficult after lunch and just before the end.

As far as the event organization is concerned, I only have one objection: the seats were too close to each other, it was really difficult to sit comfortably after a while, especially when wearing a skirt. Silly? Maybe.

Thanks @ mr. Periklis Vanikiotis for inviting me and @ my company for sending me there.

imc07