I’m at the Operative Dashboard Client Summit (our 3rd in the past 12 months), and can’t type fast enough to keep up with the dialogue!
So, you want to know what movers and shakers are here to help us collaborate on future product direction? Check out this list of digital media mavens 
Manu Warikoo, VP Product Management, Operative
“We will continue and invest in our integration with SalesForce.com.”
“Inventory is complicated. There are lots of products out there to improve the management of inventory. We are looking to expand from a simplistic to a more sophisticated model of inventory management.”
“We, as an industry, have moved beyond simply leveraging the ad server as the primary inventory management tool.”
“Our clients should have the choice of what tool will best help them manage inventory. We are committed to providing you with that flexibility.”
“We continue to invest in integration with other technologies. We launched AdTech integration in April. The value of ad server integration is critical.”
Morning anecdotes from Operative CEO and President, Mike Leo:
“Every company needs one process and one data set in which to run their business.”
“We are going to deliver more value for our clients over the next 6-12 months.”
“We’ve moved more people to Account Management and Support. We are absolutely dedicated to helping our clients drive revenue.”
“2/3 of all metrics that each department uses to measure their success are ‘client-focused metrics’. What do you (our clients) want us to be measured on? How can we deliver better for you?”
Client Summit- Dec 2008
Twice a year, the Company invites strategic Dashboard clients to attend the Client Summit. This one day event unites our clients with the Operative product team and senior executives in an effort to share ideas, educate each other on business strategies, and gather product feedback. Tomorrow, the Dashboard Client Summit will take place at the SoHo House here in New York, and will include executives from companies such as NBCU, FIM, AARP, National Public Media, and SmartMoney to name a few. Check back tomorrow for announcements, commentary and provocative insights from leaders in digital publishing.
Let me join some of the other survivors of iMedia Austin who by now have shaken off their jetlag, sent all their follow-up emails and started to blog thoughts about last week’s Agency Summit.
Like a couple of others who’ve beaten me to it (Adam Kleinberg and Lorne Brown two great examples), I think the folks at iMedia did another great job. The mix of attendees is always strong, the sessions/panels interesting and the BS quotient tolerable. Most importantly, however, what sets iMedia apart for me is the ability to not just listen to panels but to have quality debates with peers in the industry.
There were several times at the Summit in which the audience became the panel. Adam has already mentioned the infamous one minute match-ups, where for those who haven’t experienced them, every attendee gets basically one minute to tell another attendee their “pitch”. After a minute, the bell rings, mercifully ending the conversation you know you have no interest in continuing, or, more often, giving you a wonderfully unique chance to understand a company and the people behind it.
Another chance to turn the audience into a panel was Operative’s breakfast session on Monday, May 18th, where we had about 80 publishers debating the question in the title of this post. The quandry we put to them was simple, “The good news is that we’re seeing a bottoming out of the downturn and several publishers predicting greater volumes ahead. The bad news is that all of us just spent the last 4 months cutting staff, budgets and resources to the bone. Without resources, how do you grow?” We had some excellent people to help moderate the discussions: Carter Brokaw of Meebo, Steve Patrizi of Linked In, Larry Gelfand of NHL, Lisa Marino from RockYou, Brian Silver of The Travel Ad Network, Joseph Tripp from Cooking.com, Tom O’Regan from TheStreet.com and Marti Funk from SportGenic. All are veteran sales leaders who are facing the same issues.
The discussion was amazing. We’ve summarized it in a whitepaper you can see on our site. I won’t do it justice here, but check it out for insight on what publishers are seeing as obstacles to growth, and some ideas we came up with for how to overcome them.
