On making digital work.

Okay, I figure eight months is long enough to be on hiatus from Just Be Kos. So I'm back. And I have every intention of remaining back, but you know how these things can go.

So I spent the past two days at the Making Digital Work 4 conference at Boulder Digital Works. When I attend a conference I usually figure that if I find 25% of the content inspiring, they did pretty well. I've suffered through a mind-numbing amount worthless presentations at conferences throughout the years -- some poorly masked sales pitches for the speakers' businesses, some completely elementary, some ridiculously impractical, and many just plain boring -- so 25% is actually a pretty high standard.

I'm rating MDW4 at about 80%. It was probably the best professional conference I've ever been to. If you get the chance, don't hesitate. Go.

First, I got something out of every single presenter. Every single one had content that I (and my nine co-workers who were there as well) felt could and should be taken back to my agency and implemented, like, yesterday.

Second, most of the presenters were really interesting. It helped that the room was intimate and every presentation happened in the same place, vs. having to move from room to room. But these were folks who obviously loved and were proud of what they did, and were excited to present it. On top of that, the presenters played off each other. As evidenced by their Twitter feeds, they hung out together. It showed. And that made it all the more engaging.

But thirdly, and most importantly, I discovered that while digital was a platform for the conference, a rather large bulk of the topics and insights went way beyond digital application. They were quite simply about how the hell we need to be running our businesses and serving our clients right now. In 2011 and beyond.

We got some changing to do.

My mind is swirling with ideas and possibilities. Once I'm able to start turning them into semi-intelligible chunks of thought instead of the random chaos they are now, I'll throw some more here.

And I promise I won't wait eight months to do it.

In the meantime, you can actually watch the entire conference here. And download all the presentations here. And read the Twitter feed from the conference at hashtag #mdwboulder.

On mobilesocialwebdigitalinteractiveonlinegeotagecommercephonepadding.

Get on board or get the hell out of the way. I swear to god if I hear one more agency person give another lame-ass excuse for why they don't use Facebook or Twitter or any other "new media" technology, I'm going to start packing their office up for them. Yes, the brave new world can be scary as shit, but like it or not it is what the world is. Brave. New. And changing at a pace our feeble brains never could have imagined. But that rapid change is today's norm. Younger born-digitals don't know anything different. As I'm whining about how I had a party line when I was a kid (which, for those of you punk kids reading my blog who weren't lucky enough to experience a party line, meant we literally shared our phone line with our neighbors, much like having multiple phones on the same line in your house), my four-year-old son is opening up my iPhone and playing Pocket God with no help from his old man. By not fully engaging and opening your eyes to the fact that whether or not you think Facebook is a waste of time doesn't mean jack shit to the millions and millions of Facebook users out there, you are rendering yourself obsolete and announcing to those around you, "I am no longer qualified to do this job. Someone please put me on the street so I can join the ever-growing ranks of ad folks who will never work in this industry again." Look, at least dip your toes in. Use a fake name and create an accompanying fake gmail address if you don't want to put your personal stuff out there. Lurk at first. Watch and observe. Then start to participate, just a little bit. Buy something online or with your mobile device. Use a Visa gift card if you're paranoid about getting your info hacked. There are all kinds of ways to learn about what people out there are doing without compromising your perceived safety or privacy. For every excuse you give, I have twelve ways to call bullshit. Don't make me call bullshit. Get on board.