Michae Ebeid (@mikeebeid), Malcolm Auld (@MADmarketing) and Jenny Williams (@ideagarden) were thought-provoking and entertaining with their presentations. Malcolm in particular surprised me with his insight and intelligence despite being a Liverpool supporter. I had also been looking forward to hear Jenny for some time, having missed her at past occasions, and was certainly not disappointed.

While I would under normal circumstances give a full rundown of the sessions, I really saw no point in reinventing the wheel when Via Media super-intern, Rob Frost (@robfrost618), had already done such a fantastic job on the Marketing Week Student Blog…

The ABC New Media Story

Direct marketing in a digital world

Is digital marketing recession proof?

P.S. As I write this, Adelaide United have just equalised and should hopefully hold on for a 3-3 draw against Robbie Fowler’s North Queensland Fury

Seems that I wasn’t the only one who noticed how poorly Marketing Week was handling it’s own social media campaign with no Twitter presence (hello, @marketingweek ??) and a lonely WP blog entry.

Last but not least, as of this afternoon, the majority of #marketingweek tweets were from people who weren’t even there – pretty sad that amongst the hundreds of participants, there were no tweeters in attendance.

You can follow the discussion as it unfolds on Twitter (#marketingweek) which may or may not end up containing any real insight from the sessions instead of being predominately tweets on “how’d they get it so wrong?”

Should make for interesting reading throughout the week.

Instead there still seems to be a lot of “Introduction to digital/mobile/etc.” that while still serving a fundamental purpose, are so 2006…(or is that 2005). It’s a pretty sad indictment of Adelaide marketers that as an industry, we still need to be convinced about the basics before we can get into the juicy, topical stuff. More to the point, could it be a case that most marketers are still struggling to come to grips with the seismic changes of the web as a ‘pull, not push’ medium let along making their heads spin with talk of tweets, groups, communities, etc.?

Despite this overlook and the associated rant, I’m still looking forward to Marketing Week as always and very excited about the sessions I’ve booked in for: The ABC New Media Story and Direct marketing in a digital world. And if I can I’m also keen on hearing Jenny Williams and Phillip Smith from Ideagarden on the Friday. I missed Jenny the last few times she’s been in town and from all reports, it was well and truly my loss.

P.S. Look out for the Square Holes novelty gift in the Marketing Week attendees satchel. Squirt, squirt!