IanSchafer.com

See Me @ CES.

This year, I'll be making my annual pilgrimage to what should be a very interesting (for many reasons) CES in Las Vegas. I'll be there from the 7th to the 9th.

I've taken a break from panel discussions to enjoy spending a little more quality time with my wife, baby, and my other family at Deep Focus, but I'm back at it again.

I'll speaking on a panel at Digital Hollywood CES entitled Television without Boundaries: Cable, Telco, Satellite, Broadband & Mobile Define the Future of Entertainment and Communications. I'll be joined on the panel by:

Scott L Brown, SVP Media Strategy & Digital Platforms, The Nielsen Company
John Zelenka, VP of Business Development, Tribune Media Services
Venu Vasudevan, Ph.D., Senior Director, Applications & Software Research, Motorola Technology
David Wolf, Global Lead, Digital Transformation, Accenture
KC Estenson, General Manager and SVP, CNN.com
Seth Shapiro, Principal, New Amsterdam Media, Moderator

Here's the description:

The television experience has now officially graduated from its status as entertainment king of the living room, to the central component of the entire electronic consumer experience. Television 2.0 has now arrived and it includes cable – with all of its integrated services of PVR, DRV, VOD, Broadband, Wireless, VoIP and Mobile as a communications as well as scalable video provider of clips and updates to movies and full programming. The competition for the future of Television 2.0 has just begun. There will be no immediate winner, and there will probably never be a winner take all. With 250 million consumers in this country to service and a global market to reach out to, the media, entertainment and technology companies are not competing in a zero sum marketing arena. In this session, we will address these issues and more.

If you'll be at CES please do try and stop by. And as always, drop me an email or a tweet at @ischafer.

See Me at SXSW Interactive in March 2009.

It's official.

I'll be speaking at SXSW Interactive in March of 2009 co-leading a discussion with our fine clients at Electronic Arts on the marketing of the hit video game DEAD SPACE. We played a big role by developing the immersive website experience, NOKNOWNSURVIVORS.COM.

The official description of the panel is:

This in-depth case-study reveals the method and the madness behind Electronic Arts use of cross-platform marketing to communicate separate, self-contained elements of the much anticipated release of their first survival horror game, Dead Space. For this release, EA packaged a comic book, a prequel DVD, and an online experience in order to build, create, and cultivate an audience around the Dead Space brand prior to the official “street date” launch.

Together, we used the arts of transmedia storytelling and cross-platform marketing to deliver a unique experience that kept people, literally, transfixed. We're proud of the results, and look forward to a fun, comprehensive discussion and analysis of how it all came together.

Book your rooms now. They go fast. Trust me. And this years SXSWi should be the biggest and best one yet.

Should I Be at Ad:tech Today?

I already know the answer to this, but I thought I'd put it out there...

Online Surveys & Market Research

Social Media for Social Good at the Ad Council.

I spoke today at the Ad Council's Partner Conference, where many of the causes the Ad Council supports get together to discuss the burning issues around raising awareness of their very important initiatives.

At this event, the focus was squarely, 100% on social media, and understandably so.

In doing my part to set the table for the day's discussion, I gave the following presentation where I talked about some significant research findings, best practices, and case studies including our recent major effort with the Ad Council, SHARE YOUR VOICE.

Enjoy!

Social Media for Social Good

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social media)

Watch My Panel on The Self-Serve Revolution @ MIXX.

Curious as to what I said on my panel on the future of self-service and automation in online media?

Consider your curiosity a think of the past. This is actually an interesting topic, that could make for an interesting debate -- not just a panel.

Here's the panel, in it's entirety. Agree with my points? Disagree? Let me know in the comments...

Watch My Panel on Branded Experiences in Social Networks.

From the Social Ad Summit last week in NYC, watch this fascinating (yes, 'twas) panel on Branded Experiences in Social Networks, featuring:

Me
Don Steele, MTVN
Scott Monty, Ford
Deborah Korb, JP Morgan

There's some great insight here into what brands think of branded experiences in a social networking environment, what they're spending, and how they're spending it -- now, and in the future.

Video of My Panel at the Conversational Marketing Summit.

Missed me at Federated Media's Conversational Marketing Summit?

Check out video of my panel here.

Video of the rest of the panels can be seen here.

Twitter This: Me @ OMMA Social on Monday, June 23rd.

I'll be performing live at OMMA Social at 4:15pm on Monday, June 23rd at the Yale Club (getting back at them for not accepting my application), speaking on a panel devoted to social media metrics.

I've sat on the sidelines for this discussion way too long. Seen too many panels on social media metrics that didn't address them at all. I'm hoping to do all I can to change that with this panel.

Here are the lascivious details:

4:15pm: Valuable by Any Measure: Metrics that Mean Something in Social Media

A soft drink advertiser boasts about the brand’s thousands of Facebook fans; a car advertiser is thrilled that its new car model is the talk of the blogosphere. Certainly this interest in their brands is better than the alternative, but what does it all mean? The search for metrics that mean something in social media.


Moderator: Jodi McDermott, Director of Product Management for Widgets, Clearspring Technologies

Heidi Browning, SVP, Client Solutions, MySpace

Blake Cahill, SVP Marketing, Visible Technologies

Ian Schafer, CEO, Deep Focus

Adam Weinroth, Director of Product Marketing, Pluck Corp

Stephanie Pike, Strategic Program Manager for Digital Marketing, Circuitcity.com

Be there, and be part of the solution.

And take the discussion to Twitter, people.

Coverage of My Appearance at WidgetWebExpo.

Advertising Age's Abbey Klaasen reports from my panel at WidgetWebExpo, and captures the essence of the conversation. Weirdly, as the only one who actually spends money on the panel, I was put in the position of having to remind everyone that widgets are great, social media is great, but we need to figure out ways to not just use it as a public relations tool, but as an ad medium as well.

Abbey called out something I said (so I don't have to quote myself -- or is it MySelf?) which pretty much sums it up:

"Yes, it's about conversation, collaboration but it has to be about compensation sometime. In order for these to exist they have to make money," said Schafer. "I think there needs to be a conversation about the compensation and hopefully collaboration will net a result to make sure [the services] keep happening."

Video of My Panel at IAB Forum on UGC and Social Media.

Missed my panel on the future of social media at IAB's Leadership Forum? Here it is...