Forrester consumer forum, sneak peek at my speech

Well, not all of my speech, I have to save something for the attendees, after all. But I recently had a great conversation with David Armano (VP of Experience Design with Critical Mass, and blogger responsible for Logic + Emotion as well as a contributor to Advertising Age’s DigitalNext blog) and shared with him the basic pieces of my keynote speech which I will give to 600+ people tomorrow morning in Dallas.

David blogged about the speech, connecting to the element he found most interesting, that was my focus on convenience as the path to meeting consumer needs. That’s actually the theme of my speech:

People share a set of universal needs – satisfy those needs with convenience and you will win

It’s something we’ve arrived at after ten years of solid Consumer Technographics research, and I’m excited to be able look back at the data and find evidence of the role of convenience in making products, services, and channels successful.

Hope to see you there. If not, look for my blog posts about the event starting tomorrow and into Wednesday.

Michael Eisner is a funny man

On the train home to Boston from an exciting and successful event sponsored by Veoh Networks.
I’ll have more to say tomorrow about the great content we debuted there, but for now let me say how much fun I had listening to Michael Eisner (yes, the former CEO of disney) whose on-stage interview by Brian Steinberg of Advertising Age kicked off the event. He was witty and insightful, a nice combination.

Pardon the lousy quality of my Blackberry shot

Some of his most choice comments:

 

On the future of online video and “quality”:

You have to define what quality is. Quality starts with the script.

On the dilemma of whether advertisers will follow the lead of innovative content:

Advertisers always say they want the last big thing. But they really don’t. They say till death do us part, but they’re looking at the person across the street for the next thing.

On online video ad formats:

I don’t get the controversy — 30-second preroll is annoying as hell. Fifteen seconds I can handle.

On the future of on-demand content:

All broadcast and cable will be on demand, except for sports and the final episode of something great. Appointment viewing may still be the biggest business for another 2-3 decades, but on-demand is where it goes.

And for my favorite comment of the day, on the ability of Sarah Palin to generate online video views:

I would hire her today. That wink goes a long way.