Why+Cataloging+and+Calculations+should+Be+King

The following was originally published December 12, 2010 at http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2010/12/12/11-for-11-at-the-imedia-agency-summit/ I'm at the lovely Arizona Biltmore at the iMedia Agency Summit. There was an event called **11 for '11** where eleven industry leaders shared what's on deck for 2011. Here's what they think.
 * 1. 2011 will be the Year of Efficiency.** According to Josh Dreller from Fuor Digital, the squeeze is on for agencies. Publishers are working directly with advertisers. Advertisers are now becoming publishers. And demands are getting higher. All this means you better have a tight operation to survive in 2011. It will be survival of the fittest. So much competition that the ones that can differentiate themselves will win.
 * 2. Reaching Hispanics.** Census data is due this spring and Hispanics are expected to represent a shockingly high percentage of the population. Opportunities abound. They index very high in mobile so brands should think about reaching them in the supermarket aisle. According to Matias Perel from Latin 3, there will also be great opportunities to reach Hispanics in Facebook.
 * 3. Privacy regulation.** A lot of people wondering what our future is going to look like. One thing is clear. The D in D.C. doesn't stand for "digital." Washington doesn't like our industry.
 * 4. Challenge of integration.** There are big challenges with integrations, even for agencies that do it all. Teams are disjointed. Creative and media don't talk early enough in the process. Even if you're integrated as an agency, the companies who sell advertising are not. Google isn't.
 * 5. Convergence of technologies in the mobile space.** Social media, group couponing, etc. are converging with mobile.
 * 6. Talent.** Skills don't transfer from one medium to another. Many agencies are leveraging partnerships to fulfill client needs, but clients want one throat to choke.
 * 7. Don't think there's been a better time in history than the proliferation of earned media today.** Publishers now willing to track it, measure it and report it. That's according to Taylor Valentine, head of social at Horizon Media. According to the Big T, for every impression we buy in social media, we should be accountable for one earned media impression. He also gave a glimpse into the future: soon people with more influence will be given bigger incentives from brands to activate their social graphs.
 * 8. We are facing an education catastrophe.** No one is investing in training. Schools are doing lousy job.
 * 9. We really fall short as an industry in post campaign storytelling.** Michele Burnham from Burham Marketing says we need more data visualization tools to defend the value that we create for brands.
 * 10. Managing the complexity.** This is a huge problem. Kevin Ryan from Motivity says we've lost the capacity to communicate with clients. We have so much digital data to share, we don't know how to edit ourselves. Agencies are drowning in their own digital vomit (actually, I paraphrased that).
 * 11. Compensation is out of control.** Apparently in NYC, people with just a couple or a few years experience are demanding $80-90k. Combined with downward pressure from clients, agency profit margins are disappearing. Somethings gotta give.