muru-D is the start-up accelerator backed by Telstra looking to support the very best digital talent that the Australasian region has to offer.

on fire™ series one ‘Pass on the passion’ was created and hosted by muru-D on April 15th, 2014 in Surry Hills Sydney.

This curated series hosted by Kylie Jaye was produced by Telstra Media and broadcast services from Chief Entertainment.

The series features a vast array of amazing mentors and startups, sharing their passion to stimulate and encourage everyone to do big and small things – every day.

Speakers for series one are;

Ann Parker, co – founder of muru D Start up Academy
Stuart Fox, Managing Director Artesian Capital
Chris Adams,  CEO founder Spondee
Audette Exel, Co- Founder, CEO Isis Group, NED Suncorp
Naomi Simson, Founder CEO Red Balloon
Richard Webb, Founder Red Ocean, Chairman & Founder Effective Measure
Mick Liubinskas, Mr Focus @ muru D & Founder Pollenizer

I was delighted with the day and much thanks goes to Kylie Jaye for producing the great event. It was a pleasure to close the day and thank all the speakers who donated their time. we look forward to doing more in the future.

Adam Good Telstra Media Muru D On Fire Series 1.

We believe that whilst an idea is the kernel to innovation, it is passion that gives us the power, tenacity and energy to make those ideas real.

Passion gives purpose and meaning for us to dive deep and push beyond our comfort zone. Passion is the courage to ask ‘why not’ and to expect the extraordinary.

It may spark just one tiny change at a time but that spark leads to a fire that grows ideas into businesses, changes attitudes, improves lives and helps others be better in every way.

Full playlist of the day is below.

Australia’s #1 media and marketing conference is back!

Today the Sydney Hilton is packed enjoying a completely reshaped program from the ground up. This year Ad tech is focussed to better serve the needs and interests of Australia’s media and marketing industry.

It’s been exciting to be part of the event program as both an advisor and closing keynote speaker of day one.

It’s my third year attending South by Southwest (SXSW) my favourite film, interactive and music conference hosted in Austin Texas.

No doubt SXSW has now become one of the most important cultural and economic incubators of the new millennium. Every March, more than 40,000 people, including a Who’s Who of innovative executives and entrepreneurs, flock to Austin for the ten-day festival. They debate the future of business and the Internet. They wheel and deal. They party. They wake up and do it all over again.

The event offers a unique convergence of emerging technologies, original music and independent films that foster’s the creative and professional growth of anybody who has a career in the communication industry.

My SXSW 2012 experience  was all about the transmedia learning I gained at the event.A year later at SXSW 2013 it was all about a week that demonstrated clearly to me, that the progression of technology is increasingly shrinking the lag time between what we can imagine and what we can create.

This year the conference has had a big focus tech safety and security. They also had a wonderful new sport stream where I was a considerable amount of time. But like previous years you learn to just go with the flow and always be looking up. My event schedule That outlined everything I attended can be found here,

From past experience you need to be very flexible with your daily plans and let each day take you on a creativity discovery based on the people you meet and the conversations that are had.

Some of my highlights on SXSW 2014 are listed below;

There was a massive turn out for the keynote Dr deGrasse Tyson who was amazing with some memorable quotes. “Science literacy is how much do you still wonder about the world around you. What is your state of curiosity?” or “I would encourage you to not become attached to the number of things. There’s no physics in the number of things.”

I attended the Fast Company event of some of the original SXSW Interactive event coordinators giving the untold stories behind Twitter, Foursquare launches at SXSW as well as the famous keynote in 2008 from Mark Zuckerberg which defends into chaos as the audience takes over the twitter back channel. SXSW Interactive has certainly come a long way in a very short time.

I also attended a talk with Ralph Steadman who I have always been a fan of his art, wit and satire.  One that I remember that know doubt I will use is ‘a good idea runs away with itself in case of a theft’ or ‘a mistake is an opportunity to do something else’.

I attended the premier of Penny Dreadful the new John Logan TV series that starts on Show Time. It was chilling and makes Walking Dead look like a kids show.

I was invited for the second year in a row the MoFilm awards at the Driskhill Hotel. A great night and wonderful combination of wonderful T-Mex food and branded content. I love them both. I spent good amount of time with the AT&T group who are doing a lot of this branded film work. See the finalists here

I attended the Beats Music party and I encourage those that are in the USA to download the Beats Music app and give the SXSW playlist a listen. Below is a photo of myself with Beats Music CEO Ian Rogers on the night. Currently Telstra distributes MOG in Australia which was acquired by Beats Electronics a year ago. Beats Executives gave insight into there exciting plans and roadmap for music streaming. I can’t say what was discussed but rest assured it is big news that will transform the way people experience music. Telstra is excited to work with such wonderful partners and look forward to launching a big music offer to our customers in 2015.

I attended a Conversation with Jon Favreau the writer, actor, director, producer of the Swingers and big productions like Elf and Iron Man. He has an indie film here called Chef premiering here which I didn’t get to see yet. It was an inspiring talk about working in cross function and collaborative teams,

I spotted Google Glass approximately .000034 seconds on arriving in the conference halls. They really look stupid I have to say. No-one looks good wearing these.

On films I also saw the Speirig brothers new film called Predestination with Ethan Hawke. This is funded by Screen Australia so plenty of Aussie’s in the house. A riveting piece about time travel. Such good story tellers. An entrancingly strange time-travel saga that suggests a Philip K. Dick yarn by way of Jeffrey Eugenides’ “Middlesex,” or perhaps a feature-length mash-up of “Looper” and “Cloud Atlas,” Wonderful performance by Sarah Snook.

This is obviously only a fraction on what I attended and saw. On the last day I enjoyed a film called ‘Fort Tilden’. A comedy about Allie and Harper and their needlessly difficult journey to the beach. A great script, awesome dialogue and a worthy SXSW Grand Jury Prize winner.

It was a great week. I can’t wait for 2015.

This week I attended the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with another 85,000 other visitors from over 200 countries. It was my first time at the mobile industry’s premier event and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Mobile World Congress features more than 1,800 exhibiting companies showcasing cutting-edge products and services across 98,000 net square metres of exhibition and meeting room space. The four-day conference and exhibition was a wonderful time to meet with executives from the world’s largest and most influential mobile operators, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies.

The conference programme featured Mobile World Live keynotes from Mark Zuckerberg, Founder, and CEO, Facebook and Virginia Rometty, Chairman, President and CEO, IBM which gave the week a real software flavour.

I saw a number of flagship smartphone launches, several new wearable devices and some innovations from several car brands. This was cool but I wanted to go deeper and wider so I ventured out to Fira Montjuic which is outside the main halls from day three. Here I attended the Mobile Media Summit, HACKATHON and 4 Years From Now (4YFN), a mobile entrepreneurship and innovation event created by Mobile World Capital.

I heard talks and saw innovations that really brought to life where the mobile video traffic is going and what experiences are going to take up the expected growth of more than 75% year on year of mobile data.

My entire week was focused to learn more about the future digital multi screen media experiences, TV anywhere services and an end-to-end integrated platforms for service providers to engage deeper with customers. What I saw was the depth of new interactivity and multi-screen capabilities to deliver OTT video was staggering and seeing this all from a mobile first perspective gave a lot of insight to the future of media in general.

There are now so many more way consumers are using smartphones to work, live, and entertain. Mobiles are true rich media devices now. The increase in screen size, display quality, HD imaging capture and a clear momentum behind 4G is all pointing to come together to open to make rich content experiences on-the-go viable for end users.

The demands and opportunities this places on service providers no doubt requires strong leadership in crafting strategies to combine fixed, to wireless, to LTE, and, in the future, 5G programs to match customer demands that build each year.

As a media guy I learnt through the lens of network and engineering professionals about the intersection of TV, media and telecoms and the strategies required to partner with broadcasters and cable operators around the world to make content available across any screen. The high quality video content on mobile devices that LTE Broadcast gives customers a new mobile media experience that is very exciting.

I was also wrapped that Telstra and partner Ericsson picked up an award for Pushing the Limits in mobile technology at the inaugural Telecoms.com Industry Awards at Barcelona for their work on LTE broadcast technology. In late 2013, Ericsson and Telstra conducted the world’s first LTE Broadcast session on a commercial LTE network, allowing the operator to send the same content simultaneously to a very large number of devices in a target area, achieving efficiencies not possible before.

This was very relevant and when I watched the keynote panel called The Battle for the Multiscreen Home, the discussions rested around three main areas: mobile as a “door to the internet”; mobile as a stand-alone product opportunity; and mobile as part of new integrated experiences, which also span across linear TV and the wider web.

The term ‘living media’ was heard a number of times during the week best explained as the seamless integration of linear programming, second and third-screen content, viewer and cast interactions, and broader social media. This will obviously raise the bar for content providers and advertisers as it requires a shift to start rethinking the use of television and media not only from a consumer perspective, but also that more television services are landing on mobile and PC devices, and not on actual television sets as we go forward.

Another interesting trend I saw was that smartphone seems to be developing in increments now. Despite two big announcements from Sony (the Z2) and Samsung (the S5) I didn’t see anything amazing. What was a clear trend was cheaper smartphones and really all phones now are internet enabled making the rush to connect the next billion people globally as a major focus of so many organisations, including Facebook.

The facebook acquisition of WhatApp, the over the top mobile messaging platform was a constant side  discussion at Mobile World Congress. Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance this year was significant on a number of levels and the showdown between app-builders and networks about ownership of messaging as the call experience on smartphones is going to be fascinating thing to watch over the coming years.

While there may have not been much new in smartphone hardware, it is not true of software, where the battle to own the mobile user experience being hotly contested.

Android is becoming ever-more dominant as a platform for the ‘internet of things’ and it is a testament to the growth of Google’s platform they are in everything. No doubt Google will continue to be increasingly important part of the digital marketing tech and advertising universe for many years to come.

There are now true signs, research and example that mobiles could yet shape how we choose to watch TV, and of course, how we experience TV advertising. This brings me to my main observation of the week. The sheer volume of advertiser and marketers attending Mobile World Congress from outside the telco industry this year underlined the increasing influence mobile has on the advertising industry.

Coca-Cola brought 15 marketers out to Barcelona, Unilever had a strong marketing contingent and there was even a whole separate fringe show at MWC’s old venue via the Mobile Media Summit.

There were speakers from the likes of Twitter, the BBC and Walmart. Announcements made from such brands at the show demonstrated how mobile is shifting from becoming a minor part of the media plan to a major part of the business process. The mobile ad strategy is shifting from pop-ups and banners to more native and immersive forms of marketing.

The first ever showing of the Mobile Media Summit at Barcelona was significant and congrats to my good friend Paran Johar for putting on such a great show. The key trend of the event was that brands are using mobile as part of a native advertising approach. While the idea of programmatic and real time marketing is also on the rise, native is an ideal strategy to connect with consumers.

If you also add in the growing appetite for wearable technology and devices expected to grow by 947 per cent by 2017, big brands are watching and learning. Mobile marketing is going to continue to challenge everyone but one thing is for sure it is here to stay.

My key take aways from the conference is companies and brands need to focus on creating a totally customer centred operating experience that integrates living media, secure utility, seamless multi screen and if possible some wearable product innovations.

The Association for Data-driven Marketing & Advertising – or ADMA – is the largest marketing body in Australia.  Members of the organisation are among the leading advertisers, marketers, agencies, fulfilment, telemarketing and production companies from across the country.

The marketing industry has faced unprecedented change over the past few years with new channels, new technology and new consumer models have accelerated.

ADMA Engage 2013 is Australia’s only data-driven customer engagement event for marketers and advertisers to take stock of this change and hear from the industry. The event takes place at Luna Park in Sydney and the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on November 12th and 14th . The two day event’s goal is to provide real and practical insights that marketers can apply to their own customer engagement initiatives.

ADMA asked me to speak at Engage and bring a highly relevant and extremely focused talk to the event. I decided on  Engaging customers across multiple screens, anytime and anywhere. with an attempt to showcase how to develop and deploy integrated cross-platform content experiences for IP connected screens. Multiscreen is one of the biggest marketing challenges brands will face over the coming years as more connected devices come to market. Reaching the same consumer across screens offers substantial opportunities to make an impact throughout the entire purchase funnel from awareness through to purchase intent.

My talk spoke to how marketers should collaborate with publishers on brand experiences that scale fluidly from the largest of screens to the smallest. Below is the presentation. If you have any comments please don’t hesitate to contact me.

http://prezi.com/3bgx6f1epv32/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy