Lab Dance

Yesterday I visited the IPG [Interpublic Group] Emerging Media Lab. Interpublic is a conglomerate of advertising and PR agencies, and its Lab and Lab blog focus on "the intersection of media consumption, consumer behavior, emerging media and how marketers should think about all of it." I met Director Lori H. Schwartz and Content Editor (a.k.a. blogger-in-residence/25-year-old they're trying to keep of the streets) Jeff Berg, who discussed the impact of the Live Web on advertising and PR, and related legal considerations, for a forthcoming episode of Sound Policy.

These people are influencing the advertising and marketing courses of huge global brands, so I found it pretty fascinating to see who they're reading (Doctorow and Jenkins, among others) and what they're hearing and watching: as much as possible of everything that's available for any kind of device, and they're placeshifting and timeshifting it for all it's worth. They're taking red-line doses of Technorati and TechCrunch, and giving things like We Feel Fine, Pandora, and dandelife priority slots in their attention streams (which they're socially bookmarking to boot). Their exploration is (as it should be) a work in progress, and Lori and Jeff agree that the glue holding all this together is the power of genuine exchange in a human voice — and the fun of remembering your first cell phone, of course. (Full Flickr set here.)

Generationally resonant

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