NBC Olympic Pulse is my newest online obsession.
Designed by the  smart folks at Stamen Design, Olympics Pulse takes the best of twitter, tumblr, and the real time web, mashes it and serves it up right in front of your eyes. Talk about live online, this is where it’s going.

Real time tracking is certainly not new technology, Google began real time trend watching in their search at the end of 2009.

I’ve known about Twitterfall long before that. Twitterfall is a great way to track live social media conversations in real time.

But I’m mostly interested in what happens as this technology goes more mainstream and customizable by the everyday user. For example, I started playing around a simple twitter tracker from wiffiti that shows real time results for what’s being said about any 5 topics you’re interested in. Build your own at Wiffiti.com, it takes about 2 minutes. The one below tracks what people are saying about Marketing, Advertising, PR, Branding and Social Media.  It also shows photos from Fickr tagged with those keywords.

So far Stamen Designs’ projects, have everyone beat, in my opinion but the real time internet is just going to get better and better.

TRY IT: What topics will you track in real time?  Leave me a comment below with a link to your Wiffiti if you’re so inclined. Want to see your tweets show up in real time? Click on the photo above to launch the Wiffiti in a new window then text @wif17567 + your message to 87884 to see it in action.

Editors’ Note:  The real time link was on the blog but at the time this post went live Wiffiti was upgrading servers and it was slowing down my site. For now, click on the photo of the live feed and launch the real time feed in a new window.

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Hitch is a consultancy that helps marketers hire the right marketing agency.

I think I first heard Charlene Li say it at last year’s SXSWi in Austin:  Web search will continue to move toward real time. Today, Google made it a reality with the announcement of Real Time Search.

Just one of the many tectonic shifts continuing to happen in communications.  Everything is integrated and the  Google fellows give more detail on their blog than I can ever hope to explain here.

Real time search:  it’s exciting.  It’s cool.  It’s amazing.  But I do have 2 gnawing questions:

This is an excerpt from a guest post on B2B Bloggers.com.  To read entire post, click here.

Ad Industry Innovator # 10 is GamePlan, an experiential marketing firm with offices in New York and Austin.  It’s a special day for me because  I got the guy who inspired the series and it’s kind of like having Buddy Rich on to talk about drumming.

Tim Hayden’s firm was my own personal a-ha moment.  GamePlan proved to me that there were agencies out there who defied categorization and who were figuring out how to pull (rather than push) consumers and engage them effectively for marketers who wanted to participate in existing conversations.  What they were doing was more than permission based marketing it was involvement marketing.

In one of our conversations Tim suggested we come to Austin to attend SXSW this past March, in fact, I believe he said: you need to be here– he was right.  On the flight down the Southwest in flight magazine featured GamePlan in a story about how they were engaging audiences for marketers in ways traditional marketing had not been able to–and I learned a bit more about the unique position of GamePlan in the marketplace.  While in Austin Tim and I had a chance to talk shop and I was convinced again, that his was a firm that was changing the game and what it means to be a marketer.

What was the aha moment when you realized “our company needs to be doing things differently than we have been?”

In 2006, Dell hired us to execute its sponsorship of Justin Timberlake’s FutureSexLoveSounds 2007 tour. We were to execute an integrated campaign that touched fans outside the arena (street teams + SMS), at an arena concourse demo kiosk and engage fans within the “Dell Lounge,” an SRO-only area surrounding the performance stage…all to drive traffic to an online sweepstakes.

We learned early in the tour to build more excitement by “upgrading” fans by giving those in the nosebleed seats a chance to sit down by the stage (Verizon held the radio-promo ticket “drop” rights), and then engaging fans online by tracking “Dell” tagged user-generated photos and video that could have only originated from mobile phone cameras (no cameras allowed per tour policy). Manually, we identified thousands of image uploads with tags such as, “Katy and me in the Dell Lounge with Justin,” and we were successful with near 60% of those we invited to experience http://www.delllounge.com.

While these tactics proved to us again that guerrilla tactics induce and amplify buzz around a brand during an event, also opened were our eyes to the coming potential of mobile technology and social media.  A year later, we coined the “Live – Mobile – Online” engagement model as the key approach to driving offline experiences into online conversation, and vice versa.

What books are on your nightstand or great blogs on your Google reader?

My wife often starts that question with “when are you gonna read all of those…?”  in the stack now are (good friend) Richard Laermer’s 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade, Sarah Lacy’s Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good and Harlan Coben’s There Will be No Second Chance (my first Coben read sans Myron Bolitar, who has wasted many a day away with me on a beach on South Padre Island or in Tamarindo, Costa Rica).  I also always have the latest editions of Inc., Men’s Journal and Conde Nast’s Portfolio in the queue (or lou-side, ahem).

As for blogs:

http://conversationagent.com/ – I’ve read Valeria every day for the past 18 months…the longest of any blogger.

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/ – I read his post through http://otherinbox.com or click the posts he relays through Twitter.  Chris seems to post 1-3 times/day, and I always enjoy the way he reports his live experiences…proving live-mobile-online every day!

http://brainsonfire.com/blog/ – found it when tracking a stat that 90%+ of all WOM occurs OFFLINE.  Since then, I check in at least 1-2X/week.

http://adomatica.blogspot.com/ – run by my buddy, Robert Gilbreath, who pulled off the Enfartico online stunt.  There’s no better source for gossip/real scoop on the Austin ad world than can be found here.

Give me an example of marketing you think is brilliant and why.

I often talk with fellow marketers about “holistic” experiential/social marketing.  Hands down, I see Southwest Airlines as the best example of a brand that holistically markets (and exudes) a brand experience.

At every audience touch point (website – ticket counter – gate – seat – pilot’s/crew’s voice and smile…) a positive attitude and engaging brand experience seems to be present.  There is evidence of innovating that I experience each time I fly with them, because Southwest makes it a point to engage and educate each passenger on new developments, procedures and promotions that seem to be all about me, the passenger.

There is no other brand I’ve experienced that is as successful as Southwest with its culture and the warmth it delivers to a customer…and that’s the way it has been for more than 37 years. “Brilliant” is an understatement.

We’ve all read that the pitch / RFP process is broken.  Many agencies aren’t even interested in competing in pitches.  Do you see an alternative to this process?

Over the past three years, we have produced several “experimental” or “pilot” campaigns for brands combining events with mobile and social media.  I believe that this is a new way to sell confidence within a client, including both new client business and organic new business from an existing client.  Confidence is something we all must earn, and I do not believe we can redeem it with a sexy pitch or stating we have a certain experience or a global sphere of resources.  Certainly it earns a few points to demonstrate a strong network and happy past clients…I just know that “proof of concept” will rule the foreseeable future.

What does the agency of the future look like?

The agency of the future will be smaller in size, enabling it to be more agile and more responsive to client needs that change near daily.  And, for all I see BIG today as fallible, I also see challenges with the proliferation of the smaller, independent agency.  I’m seeing a ton of “snake oil” being sold today across all media types (OOH, social, mobile, traditional…) and marketing services (SEO, SEM, direct mail…), and I don’t know how we might safeguard against wasted investments in such.  Buyer beware…make us prove we can successfully execute that which we claim.

What do marketers need that agencies are not giving them?

I believe we must all see our service to clients as a partnership solution, no longer just as a program or campaign.  For this solution to be successful, I see three requisite ingredients:

a. Accountability: It should never be about the agency portfolio or the stable of ADDYs behind the receptionist’s desk.  Who cares if our peers judge us as “creative”?  Are we putting measurable (and qualified?!) numbers up in terms of traffic and sales, and/or are we truly delivering a net-positive solution to the client? And, while executing this solution, are we ready to address the miscues and then switch gears to go an extra mile in ensuring the solution is ultimately successful?

b. Innovation: Even within an existing client, no two marketing challenges are the same.  Agencies must acknowledge that they don’t have all the answers while learning about and incorporating advanced media, methodology and technology into each new solution.  At GamePlan, we have never executed the same exact solution for a client more than once, and we constantly scrutinize new technology and media that may we identify as emerging in relevancy to online conversation and offline experiences

c. Collaboration:  For too long, agencies have allowed (and embraced) “media” to define what channels can or cannot be leveraged to reach an audience.  As engagement (the “impression” is dying, dying…dead) is now the ultimate goal of that reach, agencies must look beyond in-house competencies to engage and involve partners.  If an agency has confidence built with a client, there is no reason why we cannot bring partners to the table as part of the total integrated solution…with disclosure and transparency being key.

Who do you admire and why?

My Grandad, Art Hayden, who is 93 years young this year, has survived polio, cancer and he can recall the names of/stories about every person he has ever met/place he has been here on Planet Earth.  I can only hope to one day emulate his disposition, sense of humor and appreciation for life.  Also, too many entrepreneurs to list.  Mark Cuban: because he pursued his passion, basketball, became a successful technopreneur and…you know the rest of the story; Michael Dell, because building computers in his dorm room bathroom is a beautiful story of hope; and too many more who’ve Sinatra-like “done it [their] way.”

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It’s local week again here on the Ad Industry Innovators series and even better than that, we’ve finally got a woman to highlight!  (It’s about time, the testosterone was getting a little heavy.)  Rebecca Armstrong is the Managing Director of Portland,OR based NORTH.

Portland’s a great town to run an agency in–just ask Weiden & Kennedy.  Portland’s the home of Pink Martini and the only place I know of where you can you get a doughnut shaped like genitalia with bacon on it, savor cheesy crepe goodness and wash it all down with a host of local brews.  Besides, Portland ad people are a cheeky bunch and just plain fun:  check out the Rosey Awards.

I learned about NORTH when I read that they won the Deschutes beer pitch. (If you’re on the East coast or out of the US, Deschutes is one of the largest micro breweries in the Northwest.  They’re  the ultimate David & Goliath story.  Besides my local micro, Boundary Bay, their IPA is a winner and one of the first I grab.

When I asked Rebecca to describe NORTH, she put it this way:

NORTH is a brand agency and creative collective, an expeditionary force of thinkers and makers forging authentic bonds between brands and people. Rooted firmly in the independent culture of Portland, Oregon, under the leadership of agency veterans from Arnold Worldwide, Cole & Weber, Ogilvy and 180 Amsterdam, NORTH’s single goal is to make clients famous for the right reasons in this socially-conscious, media-agnostic world.

I’ll drink to that.

What was the aha moment when you realized “our company needs to be doing things differently than we have been”?

There was no “eureka” moment as such. Evolution is part of the way we do business. We constantly challenge what we do as a company – the result, I think, of bringing together a diverse team of people who are intensely creative and entrepreneurial. Many of them have actually run their own ventures; i.e., they’ve been clients too.

What books are on your nightstand or great blogs on your Google reader?

I should probably list some worthy tomes on marketing theory, but the truth is my nightstand pile includes:

Facades: Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell by John Pearson (I’m a big fan of English eccentrics)

Drink, Play, F@#k, by Andrew Gotlieb (a laddish riposte to Elizabeth’s Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love)

Life Class by Pat Barker (another brilliant novel centering on World War 1)

As for the blogroll, I tend to seek out those blogs that combine really good thinking and really good writing.  I’m currently enjoying:

2 is the new 1: http://fishfood.typepad.com/2isthenew1/

Signal vs. Noise: http://www.37signals.com/svn/

Logic+Emotion:http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/

Design Thinking: http://designthinking.ideo.com

Give me an example of marketing you think is brilliant and why.

This was brilliant: (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?scp=1&sq=dear%20aig&st=cse) The guy managed to compose a beautiful essay on leadership, give his personal history, AND get his resume on the front page of the NYT for free.  He would have been “the new guy who used to work for AIG” at his next job, but not now.

More conventionally, I’m really enjoying the coffee wars (McDonalds vs. Starbucks.) Both companies have long enjoyed rock star marketing status for right product, right packaging, right distribution and right promotion and there’s always been a place for them both.  So it’s most interesting to watch them go head to head with their fancy coffee drink offerings.

We’ve all read that the pitch / RFP process is broken.  Many agencies aren’t even interested in competing in pitches.  Do you see an alternative to this process?

I’m not sure that the pitch/RFP process is fully broken – but it has been horribly abused by clients looking to get free answers from an artificial process, and agencies willing to give it all up for nothing.  That said, at NORTH we already implement and have better results with the alternative by identifying those brands with whom we want to work (they tend to be progressive, authentic and aspire to do good in the world) and then building relationships with them. Our recent Deschutes Brewery win is a good example.  We started talking to them months ago and, when the time was right for them to make a change, we were automatically in consideration. Similarly, we love Keen so we took an idea to them and they were very willing to listen.

What does the agency of the future look like?

Like powerful brands, the agency of the future will need a mission, a point of view that they want to see in the world, and then they’ll have to live it.  At NORTH, we believe in thinking and making.  It may sound simple, but we believe strongly in the power of the creative process and respect what happens when you actually take an idea and bring it to life in the world. NORTH is not a factory. Manufacturing leads to predictable, repeatable results.  Craft, on the other hand, leads to the opportunity to work with what you observe rather that merely operating on something you think you already know. Of course there’s some risk, but the reward is infinitely greater and much more meaningful. And that is critically important when you are trying to forge authentic bonds between brands and consumers.

What do marketers need that agencies are not giving them?

I see a lot of agencies selling clients on one-dimensional, weird or puerile communications ideas, that don’t reflect the complexities of a brand and its nuanced relationship with its customers. Take Snacklish for example (from Snickers.) My followers on Twitter (@rebeccamary) have heard me rail at length (well at 140 characters) about how condescending and, frankly, dumb that idea is. What marketers aren’t getting are comprehensive, nuanced, cross-platform ideas that respect the intelligence of the consumer.

Who do you admire and why?

Elizabeth 1. Boy, did she understand the power of symbolism and legend (Virgin? Yeah, right….) Also I have a massive crush on Barack Obama.

I’ve been looking forward to this Ad Industry Innovator profile for a while: Spike Jones of Brains on Fire from Greenville [say, Greenvul] South Cackalacky.

Recently someone commented, “Ad Industry Innovator is an oxymoron.”  Getting to know agencies like Brains on Fire proves that point of view a little ill informed.  

The shops works with a wide range of regional and national clients including Best Buy, Fiskars Brands, Confluence Watersports, the American Booksellers Association, Rage Against the Haze (SC’s youth-led anti-tobacco use movement), Love146, Jason’s Deli, Michelin and BMW.

So you get a sense of Spike, one of my earliest email exchanges with him had this in his signature line:

I wanna be like Cap’n Kirk.

Get up everyday and love to go to work.

Don’t wanna be like Mr. Spock.

Wanna kick out the jams and rock the block.

 -Bob Schneider

Says a lot about Spike, I think, and anyone who turns me on to a new artist who sounds, at times, like Dr John and Taj Mahal’s love child gets props from me!

Brains on Fire are marketing kudzu.  

Not this Kudzu 

THIS kudzu:

Once you see them they keep popping up everywhere.  

Not sure where I first heard of them.  They floated across my screen somehow and from there, well, things just kind of spread.  

• In Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff’s game changing book, Groundswell (Pg 147, if you want to look) and there they were, Brains on Fire.
• A PEMCO business event at the Space Needle at the premier of a new spot by previously profiled DNA-Seattle I met Sean O’Driscoll from Ant’s Eye View (also coming up on a future Innovator’s profile) who are tight with, you guessed it, Brains on Fire.  
• Last month over my breakfast cereal and coffee I crack open the newest Fast Company and what should I flip to?  An article about Brains on Fire.
• Based on my friend, Alan Schutte ’s (Platt Hollow Road) recommendation to feature Norfolk, VA based Grow Interactive on an upcoming Innovator post, and who pops up on their site?  Brains on Fire.

Next time the Brains on Fire team rolls through your town, go check ‘em out.  Based on the places they pop up, they’ll probably be in your town next week.  If you’re ever in Greenville and you drop in, as people in the South are want to do, take them food, coffee or beer, they’ll love you for it.  (You’re welcome, Spike.)

1. What was the aha moment when you realized, “our company needs to be doing things differently than we have been?”

Well, this may come across as conceited, but Brains on Fire IS the ah-ha moment. We always say that Brains on Fire is a state of being. A condition. A movement. A cause. An attitude.

As for our current model, we found it in 2002 when we started a word of mouth movement that birthed Rage Against the Haze, SC’s youth-led anti-tobacco use movement. We didn’t have the funds to run ads like the TRUTH campaign, and we knew that even if we did, after the money ran out we’d be back to square one. So we created a peer-to-peer movement built on education instead of one built on fear. We used our identity/creative chops to bring it to life and RAGE has become one of the most successful anti-tobacco use movements in the nation (with one of the smallest budgets). At the time, we were just doing what we felt was right. A couple years later, the word of mouth industry came to be. Now we had a name for it.

2. What books are on your nightstand or great blogs on your Google reader?

I’ve been on a business book hiatus for a while, but I’m currently reading New York Stories: Landmark Writing from Four Decades of New York Magazine. It’s fantastic. And the last book I read before that was Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly. (You’ll notice an old-school pirate mentality around the Brains on Fire crew.)

As for blogs, I look to Adpulp for my daily dose of the ad world. I faithfully read Peter Kim’s blog, John Moore’s Brand Autopsy, Jake McKee’s Community Guy blog, Mack Collier’s Viral Garden, the Brand New blog (since Brains on Fire’s heritage is in identity development), and then, of course the FAIL Blog.

3. Give me an example of marketing you think is brilliant and why.

Maker’s Mark brand ambassadors. Turbo Tax’s Inner Circle. Fiskars Fiskateers (that’s ours). Any movement that is shoulder-to-shoulder with your biggest fans where you empower, engage, listen and join forces with your customers. Scratch that. Not your customers. Your brand’s best friends.

4. We’ve all read that the pitch / RFP process is broken. Many agencies aren’t even interested in competing in pitches. Do you see an alternative to this process?

Don’t get me started. RFPs represent all that’s wrong with the client/agency relationship. We don’t answer them. I despise them. What a waste of time. But that’s the way things have always have been done – and it seems that no big agencies or companies are willing to take a stand. And for every RFP we refuse to answer, there are ten thousand agencies willing to roll the dice.

Especially spec work in RFPS. Come on. Giving away the one thing that you have to sell is completely insane. For example, an international hotel chain called us up…

An alternative? How about sitting down and having a conversation with the agency? How about checking out what they’ve DONE instead of making them guess about what they would do? How about checking out their culture to see if they believe what you believe? How about basing your decision on tangibles? Stupid RFPs.

5. What does the agency of the future look like?

You think I’m going to say digital, don’t you? I’m not. The agency of the future will be the one that is willing to roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty and figure out how and why people connect OFFline. Let’s face it, 92% of WOM happens offline. Digital is getting to be the easy part. And those are tools. Just tools. We are humans. And we crave real interaction. The rise of offline focus – and I’m not talking traditional advertising – is coming.

6. What do marketers need that agencies are not giving them?

Long. Term. Actionable. Strategies. They HAVE to get rid of the “campaign” mentality. Build a movement first. Campaigns are short-sighted and tactic-driven. It’s a great way to quickly become the former agency of record.

7. Who do you admire and why?

That’s an easy one. John Saringer. This is a guy who saw possibilities in everything. He couldn’t afford college, so after his chores and work, he’d sprint down to the local university, climb the fire escape and listen through the open window to chemistry classes. John Saringer took nothing and turned it into one of the most respected cattle ranches in the state of Texas. He worked his ass off every single day of his life, but was quick with a smile, a kind word and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for friend or stranger. Oh, and he was my grandfather.

But if you want someone who I’m not related to, I’d say pick someone at Brains on Fire. Anyone. Matt Reese, the First Impression and one of the smartest people I know. Kathie Conway, our CFO, who has a mind for numbers I’ll never have in a million years. Geno Church, the most forward-thinking WOM practitioner in the business. Greg Cordell, a principal and Inspiration Officer – the guy is freakin’ brilliant. Robbin Phillips, our Courageous President who has created a flat organization where everyone can thrive. Carrie Woodward, who manages one of the most successful WOM programs of all time – and never complains about the bad days. Simply. Amazing. People. And I could go on and on.

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