I had the pleasure of being a guest at the iMedia Agency Summit this month, representing Engageia, the interactive agency that I co-founded. The opening keynote was led by John Durham an old friend who is the CEO of Catalyst:SF and panel of speakers such as Shane Ankeney of Initiative US, Eric J. Grilly of Comcast, Jack Meyers of Media Advisory group and new friend and fellow cigar aficionado Adam Lavelle of iCrossing. The panel set the stage for the rest of the week outlining and discussing the role of the agency today and how it’s changed in the past 7 years. In 2010 4 of AdAges top 10 agencies were publishers. Many of todays publishers are now becoming exchanges, creating media buying desks and acting like agencies – agencies taking on the role of publishers. Brands are becoming content syndicators and curators.

I spent the next few days sitting in panels learning about the latest in DSP’s (Demand Side Platforms) and one on one meeting with some great people such as Robert Gatto, CEO – PointRoll, Neil Perry, President – Poptent, Arthur Muldoon CEO – Accordantmedia as well as meetings with executives from Omnicom Media Group, Integrous Marketing, Mail Online, Media Math, Rachel Zoe Digital Media, JiWire, Targusinfo, Grab Networks, Tube Mogul, nFusion, Knowledge Networks, iBehavior, Akamai, Audience Science, Media Mind, FreeMedia, Move Media, Dynamic Logic, PriceGrabber, and Weatherbug to name a few.

All in all it was a great few days in the sun and am happy to be bringing back a handful of new partners and potential partners for our clients and companies we have holdings in. It’s all quite timely as we are rolling out a demand generation and media buying offer at Engageia – and will be bringing the latest and best in class partnerships to the table for our projects.

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