Mel, following a foray into the world of acting is now Community Manager at Microsoft Advertising, a position that takes him across the globe speaking about internet marketing and social media. This, his blog, is a collection of news and anecdotes which Mel hopes will inform as well as bring a smile to peoples face.
Thought I’d start adding one of my fave photos every time I post some content from other blogs I have a hand in.
Today’s is a snap from a game drive at dawn in the Kruger National Park in South Africa last year. We were staying at the Arathusa Game Lodge on a holiday we’ll never forget.
I’ve been a very bad person and not written for Media Week for a while so promise to get back on it next week after our long weekend in the Isle of Arran.
Via the TED website, this quite long – 28 minute – presentation is a very entertaining look at how games are starting to become part and parcel of our digital lives.
Jesse is quite hilarious in his delivery, but the serious point is how these games have huge potential for marketers and brands.
Impressive list of companies we’ve helped embrace cloud computing in a speech where Steve talks passionately about the opportunities and responsibilities of this new era of information technology.
5 years ago – I got up early – 4am – dragged myself to Waterloo, and caught the train with the fabulous, and now newly married, Nitin Hegde, to Paris where I witnessed the first ever ad go live from adCenter on MSN.fr. I then spent the next 2 days working with my colleague Clea Blockey, to upload Expedia’s French PPC campaign, ad group by ad group, as we didn’t have a bulk upload tool back then.
After 7…………..yes 7 interviews, I had joined Microsoft from 24/7 Real Media as the 1st account manager for adCenter based in London. For the next 9 months I’d work with my boss – Julie Warburton – on hiring and training the acclaimed customer service team we have today.
Very proud of Mark Richardson, Chris Wallington, Ravleen Beeston, Colm Bracken and Lee Blyth for the work they’ve done over the years with that crackpot team.
Dixon Jones – Not in Vegas For a Change
4 years ago – I’d just got the community manager role for adCenter in EMEA. Essentially, I was going to work with my fabulous Redmond-based social media partner – Carolyn Miller – writing PPC blog posts and managing the adCenter forum.
One of the requirements was to seek out authorities in the industry and try and help them understand our business a bit better, figure out where the pain-points were, and feedback any insight to our product teams so they use it to make our products and services better.
I remember calling up Andy Atkins-Kruger and telling him about the new job and he said, “Oh well you much come to Iceland!”
Getting Serious with Viking Kristjan
Now, I knew Iceland was not a top priority for adCenter at the time and there was no way way I’d get permission to go, but Andy said some chap called Kristjan would pay for my trip if I promised to do a cracking presentation. The rest, as far as I’m concerned, goes down as a little bit of career history.
Spending time with Dixon Jones, Anne Kennedy, Shari Thurow, Chris Sherman, Andy, Brian Clifton, MikkeldeMibSvendsen, Sara Andersson and, of course, Kristjan, showed me just how amazing the search industry was, how smart everyone on was in it, and just how much work I had to do!
Dave Naylor – Drinking Chianti in San Jose
3 years ago – I was asked by Media Week to start writing a digital blog for them. I’d also started blogging from events and doing a lot of travel, talking about adCenter and search at conferences here and in the US. It was that year I got my British Airways Gold Card because I was piling on the points with trips to San Francisco, San Jose, New York, Toronto and Las Vegas.
Rand Fishkin and Dog about 100 ft from that Volcano!
2 years ago – I set up a Twitter account and Facebook page for me, adCenter and Microsoft Advertising. I had a built a case for us going “off piste” and using 3rd parties – which were sometimes competitor tools – in order to spread our news and insight a bit further.
Thankfully my boss – Jenny Leahy – was opened minded and now we have nearly 20K fans and followers across those accounts that “listen-in” anytime we have something to say.
Interesting to look back on what I said about my 3rd year working on adCenter too.
It was last year that I ran into a couple of my top 5 career highlights – interviewing Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter and of course Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer.
Can’t show you the last one, but it was showed internally and he didn’t disappoint!
Biz Stone in Cannes
In 5 years I’ve seen us go from MSN Search, to Windows Live Search, to Live Search and now to Bing – much better brand don’t you think?!
The part of the business I work for has gone from MSN to Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions to Microsoft Advertising.
Windows 7 was launched, Windows Phone 7 is just around the corner and Kinect for Xbox 360 means people like me with no thumb dexterity can now compete in the living room. I spent 2 hours with Blaise, the man behind Deep Zoom and Photosynth and worked with the TED guys on TED@Cannes getting exclusive back stage access to the speakers.
Thinking about it, I reckon I’ve been responsible for well over 1000 blog posts across various sites.
But, most importantly………………….. I got married to the wonderful Ashley!!
I’m immensely proud of my time here as Microsoft. I think the 2 minute wrap up video from this year’s Cannes Lions says it all about how well we are positioned in digital advertising, and long may it continue.
When people ask what I do for Microsoft, I tend to say that I do a lot of talking, either online or in person.
I couldn’t and wouldn’t have been able to do my job with out the hundreds of people that have sat and listened to what I’ve had to say.
There are swathes of people who have turned up at conferences I’ve organised, been interviewed by me or contributed guest blog posts, that have retweeted our stuff or helped promote what Microsoft Advertising is about and how we can help marketers reach huge audiences and get a great ROI.
To all those folks…………a huge thank you for helping me do my job!
I’ve singled out a few people below – I may have missed a few though as, Oil of Olay aside, I am getting old!
Setting off for Cannes via a weekend in Nice with my aunt and uncle which is handy.
It’s been a long week, hammering down the filming schedule which I hope will be as engaging as last year – check out the below interview with Biz Stone from Twitter.
Less than 2 weeks to go now till I head down to the south of France for the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.
The organisers have done a great job with the agenda, attracting the likes of Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, Ridley Scott, Ben Stiller and a host of advertising gods like Sir Martin Sorrell and Rory Sutherland.
Microsoft Advertising will be there in force – we sponsor the event – and I’ll be running around with my esteemed colleagues – Colm Bracken and Kelley Myers – filming, blogging, photographing, tweeting and, hopefully, getting the chance to imbibe some quality rose wine.
This video, from our Microsoft Advertising YouTube Channel, sets the scene nicely, with an interview with Cannes Lions CEO Phil Thomas and a look back to last year when we managed to get an insightful chat with Biz Stone from Twitter and many, many others.
