eMarketing Summit & InnoTech Conference: Day 2

The eMarketing Summit at InnoTech Conference kicked off great yesterday and I wrote a recap of Day 1. Day 2 was even better as the exhibit hall opened up. Some really cool IT, internet, and marketing companies were represented. One of the coolest things was that touch screen coffee table. I actually got to play with it instead of only seeing it on the internet. They day also featured more presentations at the summit. Here's a recap of what was discussed today:

• The morning started with reps from Microsoft demonstrating Windows 7. I've seen the new UI changes, but it was cool to see the IT/enterprise changes.
• The first summit talk was canceled, so in the second session was Jake Kuramoto of Oracle, Kelly Feller (@kellyrfeller) of Intel, and Dan Divens of Tripwire, Inc. They led a round table discussion of companies fostering online communities and how ti make them successful.
• After lunch, it was the keynote speach by Rahaf Harfoush (@rahafharfoush). She was on Barack Obama's new media team, running social media campaign to help him win the election. She discussed those strategies and the insights gained from the campaigns. I might make a whole post from this.
• The next session featured Brian Massey (@bmassey) trying to answer the question "how is your social media conversion rate?" It was a first-run for this presenetation and he did a great job outlining how to measure these campaigns.
• Next was another round table on the topic of social media marketing (I am starting to sense a trend here, no?) This was led by Carri Bugbee (@CarriBugbee), Kent Lewis, and John Cooney. They gave tips on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook marketing campaigns.
• The last session of the conference was the Hot Seat Panel, where Hallie Janssen of Anvil Media, Kent Schnepp of EngineWorks, Lisa Williams of Media Forte Marketing, and Scott Hendison of SearchCommander dissected two different websites. They took a look at the current site in front of the audience and gave tips on how to improve them (optimization, keywords, site content, usability)

The two day conference was a great introduction into the industry. I haven't even been doing this work for a year between my two different jobs. There is still a lot I can learn about analytics, seo, and sem. This was a great way to meet people and find out about the latest strategies. Portland proved itself to be a hub for social media and internet marketing. There are a lot of great minds and companies doing some great work. I look forward to more events in the future.

Obama in Music

So I originally intended to post this on Inauguration Day, but I got as caught up in that amazing event. 35 days later a lot of the cultural frenzy around Obama has died down. But not that tonight is his first address to Congress, I thought it would be a good time to get this out.

When Obama first came onto the scene as a political force to be reckoned with, a lot of artists took notice (and I guess a lot of "entrepreneurs" as well). We all know so well that famous poster. But I am such a music fan, I wanted to know where Obama was mentioned in such. So I went to AZLyrics and searched for "Obama". And there was certainly a trend. Most of the songs came from the hip-hop genre, my favorite. The references within the song also ranged. Some were not even relevant at all, and I ended up rating them with either a low, medium, or high relevance. (From the mention of the word Obama and how it relates to either the line, verse, or entire song). Here is the full list, and I have provided the lines for the highest relevance:

High

• Nas – "Black President"; It is my distinct honor, and privilege to introduce the next President of the United States - Barack Obama. (This entire song is pretty much about Obama).
  
• Young Jeezy – “My President”; Tell him I'm doin fine, Obama for mankind
  We ready for damn change so y'all let the man shine.
• Neil Young – “Looking for a Leader”; Someone walks among us And I hope he hears the call, And maybe it's a woman, Or a black man after all, Yeah maybe it's Obama.
• Common – “Changes”; What is change? change is Martin Luther King jr, Ghandi,
  Shakespeare, Tupac Shakur, Barack Obama.

Medium
Chamillionare – “My Dream”
Chamillionare – “The Evening News”
The Game – “Letter to the King”
Common – “The People”
Talib Kwali – “Say Something”
Jay-Z – “Jockin’ Jay-Z”
Lil Wayne – “Black Republicans”
Bow Wow – “Roc the Mic”
Chamillionare – “Put on for Houston”

Low
Three 6 Mafia – “Lolli Lolli”
Chammillionare – “Fire”
Karina – “Baby Baby”
Flobots – “The Rhythm Method”
Ghostface Killah – “Toney Sigel a.k.a. The Barrel Brothers"

There were two more songs that I didn't include. Every knows about will.i.am's two songs: "Yes We Can" and "It's A New Day". These songs were played so much during the media coverage surrounding Obama. Will.i.am was even on CNN multiple times during Inauguration Day. I was looking for other songs that didn't get as much coverage as these two.

But as I was listening to these, another song crossed my mind and I had to mention it here. My second favorite song of all time is by Tupac Shakur also called "Changes". Whenever I heard Obama mention "change" in his speeches during the campaign, I thought of this song. Now I am not going to put all the lyrics on this page because I've already made this a long post, but the most meaningful are these two:

"And although it seems heaven sent
We ain't ready, to see a black President, uhh"

I wonder how Tupac would feel about the wonderful accomplishment Obama made and the place in history it holds now?