Verge NYC 08: Hightlights from the Morning

Somewhere between 300-500 people are on hand this morning for the Ogilvy Verge conference at the Times Center in NYC. A collection of marketers from client brands, friends of the family and Ogilvy marketeers mill about the atrium waiting for the auditorium to open.

Lobby Highlight:
There is a great touch screen table from TacTable. About 4x6 feet, the table was designed and created for use in the Sprint stores to tantalize customers regarding content options for their phone. It works brilliantly. I love having such a big work surface. I wonder if I would leave it cluttered like my real desk or my current desktop....

Introduction:
Before we get to Carla's intro, we have a very funky/artsy quartet jamming to a sound sensitive projector. they look up from time to time to see the impact of the their music.

Carla Hendra, Co-CEO of Ogilvy kicked off the event by introducing the essence of "perpetual beta" - following that spark of inspiration, trying something, getting it out there, asking for feedback (or getting it anyhow) and tweaking. That's a far cry from my days producing TV commercials back in the day when we would agonize for 2 hours on the placement of a "sweat" on a can of refreshing Coke.

Dada, Data, Alpha, Beta - that's the theme this year. I could tell you what it means but then I'd have to kill you.

George Bodenheimer - President ESPN & ABC Sports

• George took us through the evolution of ESPN in the spirit of Perpetual Beta. When they aired Australian Rules Footbal, they invited viewers to send in a postcard to get the rules. 45,000 viewers sent in a postcard.
• Now they are launching "ScoreCenter" which aspires to capture and display live sports scores from every game on the planet.
• Of course, they also have the WidgetCenter with over 1000 available widgets.
• George also talked about their briadband offering - ESPN 360 - and their mobile initiatives: WAP, ESPN MVP (a phone that didn't take off), EXPN MobileTV

Their mission is to serve fans - I love that.
"You have to be prepared to fail" - luv that, too.