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The humble stick phone may one day change the way we collaborate and learn. I am working on an article featuring YFonGlobal, a media company that, among other things, enables organizations to create what it calls communications venues. You know, what Intranets were once supposed to be.

Because YFonGlobal uses VoIP as one of the many underlying applicatons, it also loads its proprietary collaborative application (Windstorm) onto stick phones. Got me thinking, that an organization could host a knowledge-sharing program accessible from anywhere. Students will simply plug their stick phone into a USB port on any PC, in a hotel or cybercafe, and have the capability to interact with each other, and even instructors using all the collaborative tools loaded onto it. This includes free VoIP calls, of course.  Yes, YFonGlobal is also involved in distance learning.

Speaking of online education, Bill Lanphear of OdysseyWare, a curriculum and technology company, is convinced that online education will soon catch up with the always-on student with Wiki-like rich-media applications that foster collaboration. "Students and teachers are writing blogs, making podcasts and creating their own vodcasts," he says. They are "moving like swarms of fish working in unison as
teams, seeking experiential learning, and using all forms of technology
for social networking."

So you have to wonder what’s keeping educators –and this includes companies – so far behind in knowledge sharing? Are they (a) suspicious that all these new media formats and sharing methods will detract from the content? Or (b) scared to death that administrators may never be able to keep up with all this new technology? Whatever the answer, Asking kids/employees to go to old media access points to engage in knowkledge sharing will not survive for much longer. Asking students to "park their cell phones, iPods, and
laptops outside the classroom" is ignoring reality –that "kids have woven
these devices into their personal learning spaces," says Lanphear.

On a related note, Pearson, the publishing/education company has announced plans to publish a business book titled "We are smarter than me" in wiki format.

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Now here’s another novel way to do outdoor,  breaking out of the one-dimentional format of advertising.

This 25-foot iPod in Columbus, Ohio, actually plays music.

At 800 pounds, even the white cords were built to scale. The best part for me is that it plays music off a real iPod Nano. No it’s not an ad for the iPod, but for Columbus Alive magazine.

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For all who’ve asked, Ad:tech, New York was a huge invigorating event. More on this later.

However, the keynote by David Lubars was very disappointing. Keynotes are supposed to set the tone of the day or event, and this one didn’t. I’m a big fan of Lubars’ work, so maybe I was expecting more. The Ad:tech blog, which refers to his standard BBDO messaging (about ‘insight’) stops short of saying so much. But quite frankly it was just another chit-chat –in the Barbara Walter’s interview format– that didn’t say anything.

But Lubars almost deliberately understates the case for advertising. He came across as the kinda guy who’s vehemently on the side of the customer, not the client. "What worries me, what keeps me awake at night," he said, "is that we can piss off a lot of people." he was referring to the fact that anything can be a ‘medium’ -even a street sign. Anything can be an ‘ad.’

In the old days (when agency people rubbed their hands in glee at the possibility of putting logos on apples and people’s foreheads) getting a brand noticed was a billable opportunity. Now? It’s all about getting people involved. Or, to use the ad:tech word du jour, ‘engaged.’

But Lubars didn’t elaborate beyond showing some of the BBDO work. I threw him a trial balloon question to see if the ‘engagement’ virus had entered Mad Ave bloodstream, asking him if he saw Second Life a place where agencies would get creative.  He practically dodged it. Another audience question got a softball answer. Was there a danger in losing control of the messaging, someone asked, speaking about marketers allowing customers to create or mash up their own commercials. "I don’t know," Lubars replied. I don’t know about you, but at a seminal event like this, I expect keynoters to say things that put a time-stamp on the state of the industry.

Having said that, Ad:tech was a remarkable event, choc-full of companies doing very specialized things in tracking, knowledge gathering, video, podcasting, social networking, mobile, and reporting. Many of them are risk takers, newly emerging from the eco-system of marketing, technology and advertising. After 2 days of listening to them and interviewing them, I was glad to have been here at an event that gives a lot more respectability to all of marketing and advertising.

Here are some broad themes I culled from the conference:
"Conversations matter" "
"Engagement is a symptom, not a cause" "
"Make stuff shareable" "
"Leave digital trails" "
"We’re smart, but the community is smarter"
And, of course,
"I don’t know"

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