It’s for you: Reality on Line One

Mobile March this past Saturday in Minneapolis was a big success.  The speaker lineup was outstanding, and attendees Lisa Grimm, Aaron Weiche, and Vanessa Bright have each blogged recaps worth reading.  Slides from presentations are posted here.

What stood out most for me about the day were:

• Diversity of attendees  I chatted with a striking number of marketers who said they were attending simply to understand more about mobile - something they said they knew they had to do.  There were also many attendees I see regularly at Social Media and Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA).  It was good to see those worlds intersecting and cross-pollinating more.

• Level of interest  The event sold out and I expect this could easily be a semi-annual conference in future.  

• Reality in the presentations  I was delighted to listen to Michael Becker at a recent MIMA event on mobile.  He brought a level of reality to a topic that has been the sad victim of too much hype over the past two years.  I was even more delighted Saturday to hear speaker after speaker help the audience understand what consumers want, and how different most consumers’ mobile habits are from the mobile habits of enthusiasts (like us!)  Mark Mosiniak of Best Buy and Doug Rosen of Carlson (pictured here) made this point very effectively, as did others.

Ironically, I had coffee the day Mobile March with a marketer who believes social media is in adolescence, while mobile is in its infancy.  I disagree, and the presentations Saturday prove the point.  Consumers are ready - for what they want, not for all the bells and whistles too many of us want to force on them.  Mobile is here, it’s real, and those who are adapting best will be far ahead of the pack by the end of the year.

Finally, major kudos to Justin Grammens, Phil Wilson and Linda Cummings who probably need six months to recover from the amount of work it takes to put on a quality event.  Thanks also to sponsors Recursive Awesome, RemainComm, Focus, Verizon Wireless, Fusion Room, Best Buy, and The Nerdery.