The Vernacularist

Ideas for Media Conference Please

If I wasn't busy enough, now I also have to help organize the MBA Media and Entertainment Conference, which is managed by MBA students at Stern, Columbia, Upenn, Duke and MIT.  (I know the website is out of date...we are on it. )  I'm revved for it.  Feb 9, 2007 at Columbia University.  It switches between Columbia and NYU every year.

This is what I need from you.  I have the opportunity to organize a panel on anything that falls within these categories...so it's a lot.  Of course, I'm already thinking of inviting executives from new media companies and interactive companies, but what else should I be thinking of?  What would you want to know more about?  I would really appreciate some suggestions from my very fun and creative friends who are paying attention to all this stuff. Don't forget that this is a conference for MBAs, so finance, mergers & acquisitions, and all that glorious business stuff is muy importante too. 

Here are some topics and companies I've been toying with:

Mobile technologies - entertainment companies are dipping their toes in the water, but no one has experimented enough to know what works.  What will it take?  Invite marketing execs who have tried campaigns.

Snakes on a Plane: what went right and what went terribly wrong...lessons learned. Invite the creative team and studio.  I realize this is a long shot, but there are other ways to explore this topic too.

How to make money off of mashups (beyond music)? Invite who??

Help me out, peeps....

Lance and 'Zo text messaging

I read Michael Wilbon's column in today's Washington Post.  He covered Alonzo Mourning's very personal conversation with reporters after his first NBA championship.  In 2000, Mourning was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease and had to have a kidney transplant a few years ago. He gained a lot of emotional support from Lance Armstrong's books, and later, a personal relationship with Lance: (emphasis added)

"I got a call from Lance Armstrong," he said. "He text [messaged] me after Game 5. We've been playing phone tag because he called and spoke to my mom in Miami and wished me a happy Father's Day. Before the series even started he called me and was telling me that even though his heart is in Texas he wanted to see me win. . . . He was a huge, huge inspiration to me in my whole recovery period. I read both of his books after my surgery. Laying in the hospital I was reading his second book. I think about what he had to go through [in his fight against cancer], literally being on his deathbed. I said to myself, 'If he can do it, I can do it.' And the way I looked at him, I know there are thousands and thousands of people who look at me that same way, and I want to be here to provide them with the hope to overcome and not succumb. . . ."

Wilbon doesn't comment on this mobile correspondence. And maybe he doesn't have to?  I'm interested in the comparison of mobile activities of different categories of professionals.  How do celebrities use mobile technologies? How do business executives and stay-at-home parents use technology? 

Celebrities have a history with being on the cutting edge of technology, especially movie stars.  They get the gadgets for free anyhow. However, don't they have assistants to send emails and follow up?  (In Mourning and Armstrong's case, this must be a very personal relationship, so it falls into a different category.)  Obviously, Bono and other musicians made texting for advocacy purposes famous during the Live8 concerts.

Business executives and parents have busy schedules too.  There are trans-atlantic flights, soccer games and late business meetings that screw up dinner.  With all the talk about ethnographics, has anyone done any kind of comparison in this way?

Looking over this post, it's funny how my mind didn't first explore the use of mobile communications as a emotional support mechanism.  That's really what the quote is about.  I'll do some research and look into this.  Can anyone point me in the right direction to start?