Review of #MarTech, the Inaugural Marketing Technology Conference

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There is something about inaugural conferences that is especially wonderful. Back in 2006, when Chris Brogan and I started PodCamp, the first event brought people from all over the world to learn more about the nascent field of podcasting. The best and the brightest showed up for that first PodCamp, from Steve Garfield to CC Chapman to Jeff Pulver… the list was endless, and many of the people at that first event have gone on to great things. Subsequent PodCamps had plenty of special memories and great friendships, but there was something extra in that first event.

#MarTech Boston 2014

Watch this video on YouTube.

Such was the feeling at the first MarTech conference in Boston. MarTech attracted people from all over the world who had an interest in marketing technology, faced marketing technology challenges, or as was the case for me, were marketing technologists looking for their tribe.

The sign of an amazing conference, especially for a speaker, is one in which you get much more than you give. Lots of people will say that they picked up “a nugget or two”, but that rarely justifies the time, expense, and opportunity cost of going to an event. The best conferences are ones where you walk out with armfuls of new stuff to investigate, new things to study, new ideas to try out – and that was what MarTech was this week. To get just a hint of what was shared at the conference, take a read through my tweets from it. Oh, apologies if you got flooded by me this week – Twitter was my notepad for taking notes from the event.

Food for thought: innovation is inversely proportional to your company’s appetite for risk. #martech
“The only true omni-channel in marketing is the consumer. Marketing has to catch up.” @inspiremartech #MarTech
Brand managers and leaders need to be technologists as well. Data is a core skill. – @inspiremartech #MarTech
Marketing: right brain. Technology: left brain. #MarTech needs people strong in BOTH brains. Our greatest challenge is very rare talent.
#MarTech @lauramclellan: What will happen to marketing when we have to deal with business, people, and things (Internet of Things)?
91% of sales revenue is coming through marketing channels. 46% of marketers have their own P&L. @lauramclellan #MarTech
Most progressive companies sell marketing data to best customers, to big data companies. 87% sell/share. @lauramclellan #MarTech
CMO spends more on IT than CIO. Predicted 2017, we have reached that in 2014, 3 years early. @lauramclellan #MarTech
Marketing CMOs now own the whole customer experience in the most progressive companies, from product to retention. @lauramclellan #MarTech
38% of CEOs @Gartner interviewed have shifted investment priorities to digital marketing. @lauramclellan #MarTech https://t.co/LjNg6pm0Jh
Hottest hybrid role in 3-4 years: strategic alliances manager. Technologist, strategist, marketer. @lauramclellan #marTech
80% of large companies now have marketing technologists (or equivalent). @gartner @lauramclellan #MarTech
CMTs will own/lead 6 innovation roles: responder, counselor, navigator, scholar, conductor, pollinator. #MarTech @lauramclellan
Marketing flashpoints: holistic customer experience, customer-centric digital commerce, Internet of Things. #MarTech @lauramclellan
You will have to scrap your eCommerce platform – was written by operations and IT, not customer-focused. #MarTech @lauramclellan
What makes a marketing technologist? Curiosity. Leadership. Creativity. Risk-taker. Can start as tech or marketer. @lauramclellan #MarTech
Strategy is not a goal. Strategy is a method to achieve a goal. @draab #MarTech
Challenge people using the word strategy to match the equation: method + goal = strategy. @draab #MarTech
Food for thought: Strategy is about what you say no to. Leadership is about who you say no to. #MarTech
Brands are in the customers’ minds. Strategies are in the company’s mind. @draab #MarTech
2 obstacles to marketing change in organizations: accountability and complacency. @paulroetzer #MarTech
On average, marketers depend on data for only 11% of customer-focused decisions. @ceb_news #MarTech
Success is the greatest impediment to marketing progress and innovation. @paulroetzer Risk aversion rampant. #MarTech
The best marketers can think on a strategic level, then execute on a tactical level & get hands dirty. @paulroetzer #MarTech
Only 1 in top 10 marketing programs REQUIRE a digital marketing course. Universities aren’t making marketing technologists. #MarTech
Universities reward stability, not change or innovation. @markwschaefer via @paulroetzer #MarTech https://t.co/Ixw3XJ7fYR
PR20/20 screens candidates w/marketing automation. If you don’t check out all of their site, no interview. @paulroetzer #MarTech
#MarTech @paulroetzer demoing impressive custom marketing operations management system built in @Podio.
#MarTech @kaykas says the vast majority of CEOs have come from the sales organization, for good or ill.
The biggest farce in marketing and software is believing we know what customers want before we build it. @kaykas #MarTech
The best storytellers may have high math aptitudes because you have to be great to craft stories from data. #martech @kaykas
Great feedback: Describe. Analyze. Evaluate. Foundation of agile marketing processes. @kaykas #MarTech
3A’s for finding marketing technologists: aptitude, altitude, attitude. Smart. Strategic. Motivatved. @erica_seidel #MarTech
Scout/Evaluate/Sell are HR equivalents to Lead Gen, Lead Qual, and Closing. @erica_seidel #MarTech
3% of hires came from postings on LinkedIn. Direct outreach works much better than advertising. Scout your talent. @erica_seidel #MarTech
Marketing technologists have to be scouted and identified by skills, proactively. They won’t find you. #MarTech @erica_seidel
Hiring is selling, especially when talent is scarce. Craft your selling message w/as much effort as product sales. #MarTech @erica_seidel
Marketing is leading the Big Data charge @scotiabank in financial services, pushing organizations. #MarTech https://t.co/yNBJRApPxW
#MarTech plays the middleware, connecting IT and marketing to generate real results. @janehiscock
RT @teenord: Everyone has an opinion and they’re all backed by data. #bigdatarisk #martech
If gov’t outlaws third party cookies, a lot of marketers will suddenly be without data. #MarTech @teedubya
Build your own cloud rooted in effective tag management. @teedubya #MarTech
#MarTech: Amara’s law, we overestimate short-term impacts of tech & underestimate long-term impact. @chiefmartec
#MarTech What’s needed to change the world: a power system and a control system. Power + structure. @erikbryn https://t.co/Jv0SeF5UC0
Industrial Revolution complemented humans w/physical power. Machine Revolution substitutes humans w/mental power. #MarTech @erikbryn
Industrial machines need people to scale. Information age machines need fewer people. @ErikBryn #MarTech Structural unemployment long-term.
#MarTech Driverless trucks for long-haul trucking is where the $$$ is, @erikbryn: https://t.co/fueVrFuXKI
In 10 years, talking to our machines will be the default mode of interaction. @erikbryn #MarTech
How valuable is a press release? Machines can write them flawlessly now, without human editing. @erikbryn #MarTech #PR
IBM Watson got temporarily fouled up in natural language processing when it read Urban Dictionary. @erikbryn #MarTech
#IBM Watson evolved much faster than humans to win Jeopardy. Total unstructured data. @erikbryn #MarTech https://t.co/7m3WMe5VsZ
#MarTech machine learning now being used in HR to automate hiring, more accurate than humans for good fits. @erikbryn
RT @ValaAfshar: Everything in this 1991 Radio Shack flyer is now in your smartphone! https://t.co/f3H60FXvYq #MarTech
#MarTech more and more humans will be left behind as machines advance. #TheGreatDecoupling @erikbryn
Food for thought: the only way humans will keep up with machines is to augment ourselves with machines. #MarTech
#MarTech winners and losers: high skilled workers win. mid and low skill workers lose and are left behind. @erikbryn
#MarTech most hurt in wages and employment are middle-skill workers. Service jobs OK so far at low income end. @erikbryn
#MarTech Winners and losers: owners of capital win far more than laborers, driven by technology & robots. @erikbryn https://t.co/23RUu38fp5
#MarTech winners and losers: Superstars vs. everyone else. Mega-influencers will win more and more in the machine age. @erikbryn
#MarTech Free, perfect, and instant makes incredibly high barriers to entry. Early winners tend to remain winners in digital age. @erikbryn
#MarTech Thomas Piketty’s excellent book Capital in the 21st Century is free on Amazon Prime Unlimited: https://t.co/p8Ol6Hgnxz
#MarTech Computing power evolution: Today, smartphone chess programs can beat human grandmasters. @erikbryn
#MarTech The grand challenge is to race with machines, not against them, playing to human & machine strengths. @erikbryn
#MarTech Humans still good at creativity, interpersonal skills w/other humans, fine motor control. Remaining jobs will be there. @erikbryn
#MarTech 4Es of Marketing: Experience, Everywhere, Evangelism, Exchange, to replace 4Ps. @sheldon_tm
#MarTech Where do software & marketing ideas come from? Theft, Method, Intuition. Reusing ideas, frameworks, guessing. @sheldon_tm
#MarTech: CFO: What happens if people leave us after investing in their training? CEO: What happens if we don’t and they stay? @sheldon_tm
#MarTech What Sapient Nitro teaches at its Marketing Technologist University. @sheldon_tm https://t.co/QS1FEQGyed
#MarTech Create comb-shaped teams of T-Shaped people and you have a marketing A-Team. @sheldon_tm https://t.co/12A9LZ9KRh
Top performers not used to struggling in new territory, #MarTech university was an emotional shock to them. @sheldon_tm
The #MarTech CMTO lives at the intersection of storytelling and technology. @sheldon_tm
“Learn is NEVER in the past tense” – love that tagline from @sheldon_tm #MarTech
#MarTech Core message to marketing technology leaders (and would-be): BUILD something with your own hands/mind.
#MarTech We must retrain marketers for a post-broadcast world. Marketing technology is that bridge. @sheldon_tm
#MarTech fastest pace of technology change has been last 2-3 years. Customers more powerful than ever. @sherylpattek https://t.co/pFkKEz7kZD
#MarTech Attention is now THE scarce resource. 20% Y-o-Y decreases in adult attention span. Currently 8 sec. @sherylpattek
#MarTech “Brand is the emotional aftertaste of a series of experiences.” @zefrank Customers define brand by memory & experience.
#MarTech: Fast + Easy + Relevant = Convenience. Helps to define disruption. @sherylpattek
RT @dharmesh: When it comes to the customer journey, companies should be the friendly tour guide, not the cranky bus driver. #martech
#MarTech CMOs are largely not technological and need help understanding & improving technology impact on P&L.
#MarTech @McKinsey says companies that use analytics extensively see 23x boosts in customer acquisition. @jasonheller https://t.co/Qen5DEf74t
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” – Peter Drucker @jasonheller #MarTech
#MarTech Core principles of growth hacking: user-get-users. Fast onboarding. Big platforms. Product hooks. @SeanEllis https://t.co/amDrXi4cHv
#MarTech Going on stage in 5 minutes. Get the entire eBook for my talk here: https://t.co/sIHmnKA0I1
#MarTech Want to share algorithmic thinking tweets? I wrote some starter ones for you, just tap/click to share: https://t.co/79p18bedE3
#MarTech People + Process + Data + Technology = Marketing Capability @shawngoodin
Thanks @chiefmartec and @MarTechConf for having me at #MarTech! eBook & slides for my talk are here: https://t.co/v84FqjEMSs
#MarTech Capability scorecards/metrics let you understand what’s most broken in your marketing stack. @shawngoodin https://t.co/cyKIn3ASAp
#MarTech “Marchitecture” – fun neologism for marketing technology stack. @shawngoodin https://t.co/IAZpqQm4hm

If you’d like to get my slides and talk from the conference, it’s available here:

I look forward to hopefully being at the next MarTech conference, and I would encourage you to register and sign up for it as well, if you have any interest in marketing technology, if you want to know more about it or improve your own skills.

I would like to thank Scott Brinker and the team at Third Door Media for putting together such an incredible event and having me speak at it.

Review of #MarTech, the Inaugural Marketing Technology Conference

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