Ten years ago, way back before government officials were tweeting their private parts or anyone could plus one their Google, an intrepid group of Minnesotans inaugurated the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association’s annual Summit. This was a very complex, new conference from a three-year old association with less than 500 members. This was a dare, a risk, a mammoth outpouring of volunteering love. And it took place right before the first dot-com explosion.

In other words—a brilliant beginning. Because ten years later, the MIMA Summit is the largest annual marketing and technology conference in the Midwest, hosted by the oldest interactive marketing association in the country. A testament, if you will, to the pioneering intent of MIMA’s founders, early sponsors and supporters, and most important—the amazing marketing and interactive talent living and working in Minnesota.

We Made Something Incredible

We – the community of developers, technicians, producers, writers, designers, UXers, content strategists, project managers, film directors, account managers, brand leaders, media planners, investors, lawyers and even the Master Social Media Guru Pundit experts – have created and nurtured an awesome marketplace. The talent in Minnesota that defines, funds, creates and sustains game-changing business ideas is second to none. And throughout this past decade, the MIMA Summit has come around each year to remind us of the strength and vitality of our community.

I’m lucky to be involved in this association at this point in time. I am inspired by our association’s abilities over the past decade to continuously build an annual event now serving over 1,200 people. An event with national appeal, that celebrates the story of Minnesota’s powerful and growing interactive marketing industry.

A Continuing Mission

The tenth annual MIMA Summit, on Tuesday October 11 and Wednesday October 12, promises to continue MIMA’s overarching mission—to elevate talent—by providing an incredible roster of useful insights, focused passion and spirited dialogue. You’ll walk in with an incredible array of over 50 speakers, panels and session to learn from, including keynotes by Wired’s Chris Anderson and Google’s Avinash Kaushik.

You’ll walk out inspired—and not just by the talent elevating your talent. Ticket prices for the 2011 MIMA Summit are still being sold at 2009 prices, easily the best value for any conference of this size and scope. I hope you will spread the word and plan to join us as we celebrate the digital decade: what happened, what’s next and why it matters.

— Tim Brunelle

The panel format works well for challenging topics, such as integrated communications, for a number of reasons. You get to hear more than one point-of-view. You get to learn from some of experts we have right here in our local professional community. And you get to participate in the conversation yourself, as was evidenced by the many thoughtful questions and insights offered by the audience.

Moderator Andrew Eklund, CEO and Founding Partner at Ciceron, set up the conversation by showing three charts describing the media environment that underscore the degree of difficulty marketers have with integrated communications.

The first chart showed media channels available in 1975. It featured a dozen or so data points – television, radio, newspaper, outdoor, direct mail, etc. – and corresponding arrows pointing at how they touch the consumer of the media. Very neat, organized and easy to look at.

The second chart showed the media channels available in 2008. With the addition of digital media, the number of data points and delivery arrows mushroomed. Imagine a chaotic web created by a hyperactive spider on mescaline. (That’s a powerful and dangerous mind altering substance, kids; leave it alone.) There were many nods of agreement when this slide was displayed.

The third chart showed the media channels available in 2010. With the addition of social media, the number of data points and deliver arrows was so dense that it was, indeed, a solid black box, with every pixel filled with information. This got a few knowing, and nervous, chuckles.

Eklund then opened the discussion by stating that, with our evolving media environment, integrated communications is like a holy grail to marketers and asking if we have found it.

Paul Ratzky, Interactive Director and Vice President at Olson, observed that the concept of integrated communications keeps changing, because the integrator is shifting from the agency to the consumer, as people select their own channel pathways. Which means marketers need to follow their audience and deliver messages in the audience’s preferred channel, as opposed to trying to move them into the marketer’s channel of choice.

Glenn Karowski, Managing Director, The Business of Ideas, added that effective integrated communications is about conversation and relationships. And the key is to be a good listener.

When asked who is responsible for listening to consumers (marketing? branding? advertising?) Erik Erickson, Owner of Erickson McGee, LLC and former Vice President and Creative Director for Target commented that we are still in the early stages of figuring out how to listen. And that figuring out what to do with what we hear is the next big challenge.

Download the podcast (available soon, please check the Resources section next time you visit this website) and listen to the complete conversation for a number of practical insights. And be sure to leave your comments here, to share the key take aways you think are important.

1. How long have you been a MIMA member and/or attending MIMA events?
2. What inspired you to seek a seat on the board?
3. Can you share any new ideas, approaches or goals that you have for building MIMA’s membership or marketing MIMA?
4. What social networks can other MIMA members connect with you on?
5. Do you have a website (your own or employer) you would like to share with folks?
6. mac or pc? care to comment on that? go ahead… have some fun with it….

Katia Holmes – Membership Director (joining forces with Ben Wallace)

1. Three years. My first MIMA event was August 2005. My second event was in 2008. The three year lapse was due to extensive travel and long hours. I am glad to be able to attend again.
2. I like what MIMA has to offer. I have enjoyed all of the events. I want to get the word out about how great the events are, the information and the education MIMA provides is wonderful for the Minneapolis community. Plus you guys serve great food and wine at the events!
3. Growing membership? Grow from within. During these crazy economic times it is going to be more difficult so it will be so much more important to show the benefits and value (i hate that word). There are a lot of companies, including agencies that want to educate their employees but can not send them to conferences because they are expensive. Well in their own back yard they have MIMA and for the same amount or less of a conference they can have multiple people join and learn.
4. I can be found on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @katian I think that is it.
5. My employers website is ideapark.com
6. MAC! I have had too many blue screens of death to ever go back to a PC. PC’s are just such a pain. I love my MAC it is intuitive, where as a PC thinks in a box, and nothing good can come of that. Plus my first computer ever back in the 80′s was a MAC.

Betsey Kershaw – Marketing Director (joining forces with Christopher Pollard)

Christopher Pollard – Marketing Director (joining forces with Betsey Kershaw)

1. I’ve been attending events since 2004 and a member since 2005.
2. I want to give back to an organization that has given me so much.
3. MIMA has played a valuable role to help foster the development of an extremely talented interactive community. I believe Minnesota is a hotbed for strategic and tactical innovation and amazing creative work and thinking. I look forward to working with my fellow co-marketing directors to develop an integrated strategy to help spread the word about MIMA and its member’s good work.
4. Social profiles include:
   • Twitter: @chrispollard
   • LinkedIn
   • Plaxo
   • Facebook
5. Whoop Design: www.whoopdesign.com
6. My first computer was an Apple IIc. So, the answer would be Mac.

As you know, MIMA loves to represent so not only were we a sponsor but two of our very own board members Michael Kraabel and Elizabeth Saloka threw caution to the wind and gave it their all for 120 seconds. We are all very proud here at MIMA so make sure to check them both out on Ignite’s YouTube channel.

Another Ignite sponsor, Catalyst Studios, has generously put together a video that highlights the night and leaves us wanting more (and yes there’s more). If you didn’t make it, not to worry because Ignite Minneapolis #2 is in June and it’s not too late to sign up to be a presenter – remember it’s only five minutes!

So, when is the next opportunity to go to a bar and learn something? Glad you asked because it’s just around the corner. Come join us along with MCAD for CATFOA‘s “Living in a Post-Advertising World” featuring Michael Lebowitz at the Fineline on Monday, May 11th. Hope to see you there and hope you learn something!

Participate in the Polling Place Photo Project, a nationwide experiment in citizen journalism, sponsored by The New York Times, AIGA, and Design Observer.

All you have to do is look through your lens and document democracy. Simply capture your local voting experience (abiding, of course, by state and local laws), post your photos, and become part of this nationwide, non-partisan project. The goal is to capture primaries, caucuses, and the general election from the people’s point of view.

Here’s how to participate. And here are some recent photos from the Super Tuesday Minnesota caucuses:

Minneapolis
“Democratic caucus line”
Photograph by Lewis Weinberg

“The convener shouts out directions”
Photograph by Pat Carney

Saint Paul
“Caucus chaos”
Photograph by Heidi Sandstad

“Post-caucus quiet”
Photograph by Arah Bahn

How about it MIMA members? Capture your user experience. Look through your viewfinder. Point and shoot. This is everything you applaud in a open-source initiative — photographs of the people, by the people, for the people.

Q: As Senior Online Marketing Analyst with Medtronic, what are your responsibilities?

Ward: I like to think of myself as an online marketer that saves lives.

Medtronic produces state-of-the-art medical devices and Medtronic employees worldwide share a common goal – to “alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life”. Every 5 seconds, the life of someone somewhere in the world is improved by a Medtronic product or therapy. As a search marketer I help Medtronic strategically place our product and therapy information in front of people searching online for healthcare information.

My primary responsibilities include ‘evangelizing’ the value of search marketing and web metrics/analytics to the marketers at Medtronic. I’m attached to a very talented group of people. We act as an internal interactive agency to the various Medtronic business units.

Q: How can a large company’s (such as Medtronic) approach to search be similar and different than a small mom and pop’s?

Ward: Small entrepreneurs can be quick and nimble in the online market place. Medtronic is a very large medical device manufacturer. So we develop systems and processes to help us react more quickly to online marketing opportunities. Medtronic operates in a highly regulated environment, so our content faces extra steps and much scrutiny before it is allowed to be published. This sometimes affects what we can and cannot do with regard to search marketing. It’s tough environment for SEO.

Q: You do a fair amount of speaking about search marketing at conferences and with private groups, are there any differences between preparing and speaking for a private group vs larger and more general audiences of a conference? What is your favorite part of speaking?

Ward: Yes. My professional speaking developed in just the last few years. It started out when Jimmy Poole invited me to speak to the James J. Hill Library staff on the topic of search marketing. That experience gave me the confidence to step up and do more. Since then I have been fortunate enough to be invited to speak at the MIMA Summit and several Search Engine Strategies Conferences among others.

I find that with the smaller niche audiences I can tailor my presentation to be more audience-focused. This is harder to do with a larger, more general audience.

I am very passionate about what I do so the favorite part of speaking for me is when someone gets to that “Aha!” moment – when they find insight into the paradigm shift that search marketing represents.

Q: What do you think of Google’s Universal Search and how do you think it will evolve? How can a search marketer take advantage of it?

Ward: Basically, Google is trying to read your mind, and they are getting better and better at it. Google’s Universal Search is a landmark step in that direction. Search marketers and savvy Web surfers know lots of techniques to get relevant results from the search engines.

However, your average searcher needs assistance making the most out of their queries without getting overwhelmed with the number of different search indexes available on Google.

At first glance it would seem that this new interface could potentially reduce traffic to the Web page index as other indexes get more real estate on the search engine results page. This isn’t necessarily bad for search marketers. Now, instead of having all their eggs in one basket, search marketers have a greater opportunity to extend their reach and relevancy into image, blog, video search, etc. The long-term value of well-written content in the vernacular of your target audience may very well increase.

Q: How long have you been a member of MIMA and what are the beneficial aspects of being a member for you?

Ward: I’ve been a member of MIMA for about five years I think. I remember earlier on, I was a bit of a wall flower at the social functions, but I soon got to know a few people and things warmed up quickly after that. Now networking at MIMA is a permanent part of my professional development. MIMA functions are now full of familiar faces. The speakers they get are usually dynamic and the venues MIMA selects are outstanding. I often encourage people to join.

Q: Music, sport or passion: What do you like to do, read or listen to when away from work?

Ward: My tastes in music are eclectic. I enjoy a good hard science fiction novel. I love Asia, especially Thailand. Like many others I share some of these topics on the social networking sites such as iLike, Flikr, Facebook, etc.

I also collect what I call “National Geographic moments”. Moments like my first glimpse of Edinburgh Castle, an early morning visit to the Tsukiji Fish market in Tokyo, a night dive with manta rays in Hawaii. Bertrand Piccard once said “Life is not governed by chance but by encounters.”

Most people are surprised to hear that I was also formerly a geologist. I still have an appreciation for unusual or rare rock and mineral specimens.

Q: Do you have a tip or a couple of your favorite search marketing resources you would like to share with the MIMA folks?

Ward: I highly recommend Rand Fishkin’s SEO Tools on SEOmoz.org. I use quite a few of the Firefox search tool extensions. Also, we have started to use the foreign language datasets in Keyword Discovery.

My tip – Leverage online web metrics to provide business insight to your clients. This will logically lead them to develop search marketing opportunities.

Thanks Ward!

I’m happy to introduce Ivan Nuñez of The Nancekivell Group for our next MIMA member interview. Ivan and the rest of the folks at The Nancekivell Group work with an exciting range of clients. I hope you enjoy “meeting” Ivan in this interview and leave a comment introducing yourself and saying hi!

Q: Tell us about The Nancekivell Group where you work. What type of businesses make up it’s client base and what services does The Nancekivell Group provide?

A: The Nancekivell Group specializes in strategic marketing communications. The company has 25 years of broad business experience providing services to clients of all sizes, from Fortune 500 corporations to non-profit organizations.

Current active accounts include Possis, St. Jude Medical, 3M, Best Buy, Cargill, Artic Cat, amongst others.

We provide services in:

• Corporate brand strategy and communications (Research and Competitive Analysis, Strategy and Positioning, Naming and Identity Systems Design, Brand Launch Programs, etc.)
• Marketing communications (Strategic planning, Message development and positioning statements, Employee communications and recruitment materials, Capabilities materials, etc.)
• Investor communications (Annual reports, online Annual reports, Investor presentations, Shareholder meeting materials, etc.)
• Interactive solutions (Web Site Strategy and Design, Intranets, Extranets, Web Applications, E-newsletters, etc.)

Q: In your bio your title is Director of Interactive. Explain for us what you do and whether you are working on client projects or interactive activities of The Nancekivell Group.

A: As Director of Interactive at The Nancekivell Group, I work directly with our clients to develop interactive strategies that would support their business objectives. My role includes participating in “pitches” to prospective clients to working with our seasoned group of designers and strategists to help our clients deliver positive brand experiences online. I also oversee and execute the development of the interactive solutions we propose. I am a seasoned designer and programmer with 13 years of experience. I came to the Nancekivell Group last November from another local agency where I held the same position for 6 years. I was impressed by The Nancekivell Group’s list of clients, experienced team and quality of print work. My goal is to raise the quality of their interactive media solutions.

Q: Does The Nancekivell Group provide, manage, or recommend internet marketing services such as media buying, analytics, social media, mobile technologies or search engine optimization/search engine marketing (SEO/SEM) to your clients?

A: We recommend interactive marketing strategies to our clients, but these are not at the center of our services. Many of our clients come to us looking to re-evaluate their online presence aiming to engage investors or to provide business to business corporate information. Most are ready to re-analyze and re-prioritize their sites, but few are ready to include an interactive marketing plan in their site overhaul budget. The benefits of some services, such as SEO are easy to promote; however, few clients understand the value of online marketing and perceive that traditional methods such as print ads are more measurable. My job as Interactive Media Director includes educating clients about new opportunities in internet marketing. Since I am learning about online marketing myself, I find my MIMA membership essential.

Q: What are the emerging and growing trends you are seeing in the interactive services you offer and recommend?

A: Many of our clients are still catching up to Flash interaction and video, so I see no new trends within the services our clients demand; however, I am personally interested in how brands can promote consumer trust by engaging them socially. Consumers want to learn about a product or service from people like themselves. This topic has been widely discussed at MIMA, particularly in relation to blogs and podcasts. I think as companies feel more comfortable relaxing their guard, they will open up to social media changing that space in interesting (good?, bad?) ways.

Q: What have you found to be the most challenging and rewarding aspects of working with the large clients of The Nancekivell Group?

A: Working with large clients usually means our work will be highly visible. It is also satisfying to work with clients whose product or services I have used or know. A small drawback to working with large organizations is how layered and cumbersome their approval process could be.

Q: How long have you been a member of MIMA and what are the beneficial aspects of being a member for you?

A: I think 4 years; 3 for sure. When I first joined MIMA, my goal was to learn a little more about the agencies doing interactive work in MN. What I found was a wealth of information on trends, best practices, new technologies, interesting strategies, and more. Being a MIMA member has helped me in my job. The annual Summit is a “not to miss” for me. In addition, meeting people in the business has been great.

Q: Music, sport or passion: What do you like to do, read or listen to when away from work?

A: Because I spend a lot of time on the computer daily, I like to do social or outdoor activities when away from work. I’ve been taking French classes for the last four years. I am fairly fluent now and go to a French discussion group at Cafe Royale every Saturday morning. I also like to go out with friends for dinner, a good martini and even dancing. Count me in for the MIMA socials! I have a canoe by Lake of the Isles and I go canoeing after work during the summer.

Q: Do you have a tip or a couple of your favorite resources you would like to share with the MIMA folks?

A: Blogs I visit:

• Micro Persuasion
• Seth Godin’s Blog

Thanks Ivan for taking the time out of your busy schedule to share a little about yourself and Nancekivell! I and many others look forward to meeting you in person at the next MIMA event!

I had been working steadily towards the goal of starting my own internet marketing agency for a number of years. As you move up the ladder, you become more removed from the work you love and more into employee management, or if you’re in an agency, you get pushed into sales. I like hands-on marketing and that’s my lifetime work.

I love working with clients, and learning their marketing and product challenges. I absolutely love it when I can come in and change some behaviors that have an immediate impact in revenue or cost reduction (who wouldn’t?!). The most challenging part is working with the constant issues of time restraints, which often is harder to overcome than the financial constraints. Everyone is so overloaded these days, it’s always hard for clients to be able to have the time to focus on everything they need/want to do.

I love long-term client relationships, but my goal is always to get to a point of proving enough of an ROI and growth in the business for the client to hire internally. People get a surprise when I say my goal is for them to fire me.

You have to get to the real metrics of which online channels are delivering revenue, not traffic. It can be very discomfiting to pull away from a channel that outwardly seems to be a great source of leads. But you have to follow it all the way down to final revenue and make your decisions based upon that, and that’s often hard to track.

I also find that one of the most common issues is determining which tactics are right for a client. Marketing is not a cookie-cutter business, and everyone’s business is unique, even within industries. While some tactics, like search or email are in almost all plans, there are also times when you want to exhaust all other channels before turning to SEO or PPC. For example, products with latent demand – customers would love it, but don’t search for it directly, so if you do use search, you have to develop it around the category, not the product.

The most rewarding part is when we develop a tight strategy and stick to it. When you do that, then you can be very rigorous on qualifying new tactics and staying focused.

This is a fascinating idea, and I’m studying it seriously for some clients. This is another great form of disintermediation that Google is getting into, but also supports their goal of building their user base by providing successful web experiences, because they will rank good converters higher.

Aggregators like Lending Tree, Search for Colleges, etc., have made enormous amounts of money in this space and I love the idea of putting some of that power back into client’s hands. Of course, the aggregators will also love it! I think it will be most successful overall in fragmented industries.

I have a few clients where SMO is a big part of our brand and loyalty efforts, and it supports the popular idea of having your audience build the brand for you. SMO isn’t right for everyone, but can be very powerful for some. Like many online strategies, you have to see it as a split objective – many started it to build link strength for SEO, but all SEO efforts should be based upon spreading your brand to the right audience and providing a good web experience for people.

Generally I feel you have to answer the big issues first – is your site converting visitors? Do you have a strong relationship email program? Can people find you on a search engine? But certainly there are pockets who don’t use email anymore, and we know that people often trust unknown individual’s recommendations above marketing efforts.

Never underestimate the power of having some quiet time with your numbers in an excel file; most of my ‘ah-ha’ moments have come from quality time with excel.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project is a great free resource. There are a huge amount of free or inexpensive webinars out there. I actively subscribe to ClickZ, eMarketer, Marketing Profs, Marketing Sherpa, and a host of others I read less frequently. Google Analytics is an amazing free analytics program that can take you a good way before you invest in more advanced analytics. Unless you have someone who can dedicate a lot of time to analytics, you should seriously consider whether to spend the money on expensive tools.

My biggest recommendation is always to try to think like the customer – who is she, what does she want, how does she communicate, and what matters to her?

MiMA is a fantastic networking group, and brings in great speakers. It is vital for anyone who is serious about internet marketing in the Twin Cities to belong to MiMA. Their summit last year was brilliant and cost a fraction of huge and sometimes wretched conferences.

My husband, Dylan Hicks, is a former musician and a professional music critic and writer. My new employee, Keith Patterson, is a professional musician and well-known mod encyclopedia. Music is a big part of my life. At work, I often listen to international music so the lyrics don’t distract me, right now I’m on an African music kick. I am also on the board of the Minnesota Planetarium and Space Discovery Center.

I am an avid reader, don’t watch TV, and have a serous interest in obscenely expensive shoes. I ride a clunky old cruiser bicycle, a gorgeous Ducati motorcycle and will be getting a gorgeous Royal Enfield motorcycle next month. But the best thing in the world is playing board games with my 6-year old son and husband. People sometimes don’t believe it when I say I am a shy workaholic nerd, but that’s the real me.

Thanks Nina!

My first interview was with Paul Jahn of LocalMN.com and his LocalMN Blog. You can read the interview with Paul Jahn at the MIMA Search Marketing blog which is a blog that we started for a group of MIMA members that are interested in SEO and search marketing.

Today I’m happy to bring you our next interview, a feature with Nina Hale of NINA Hale Consulting, Inc. Nina shares some great info, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading and I encourage you to leave comments to create some interaction.