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You are cordially invited to attend The Jaded Marketer's Forum (JMF) on Friday, May 18th, 2007, a curious, new concept for get-togethers for the "tired and tested" marketer. (Feel free here to skip to the topics on the agenda below. But come back here to read the rest.)

Meeting between 2pm-4pm over a late lunch and coffee at Sarabeth's Central Park South in New York (link to site), the JMF is a candid conversation about marketing today modeled after our highly successfully Consultant Entrepreneur's Forum (link to CEF), and loosely based on the theory of the wisdom of crowds (link to book on Amazon): that assembling a diverse group of marketing professionals will generate ideas superior to any idea any one of us could come up with individually.

In spite of the warmth and security of your desk, the JMF promises to offer something you thought you lost during your years practicing marketing: enthusiasm. Each two-hour session is packed with stimulating ideas, innovative tactics, and c-level strategy brought from all over the marketing universe.

But don't panic; the JMF isn't some scholarly lecture of who's doing what in the industry, but an opportunity for marketers to exchange with creatives and creatives to exchange with marketers as loudly as they'd like without offending each other; all in a format that enhances its value to you. To be sure, you will leave a Forum brimming with ideas on better marketing. However, they will be your own, unique ideas, as opposed to your competitors'.

Unlike those other get-togethers for marketers the JMF charges no fees and does not require you possess a minimum "15 years of experience" to be a participant; it's a collaboration by professionals (ideally 5 to 8 per Forum), with no pretense that any "grand puba" has the monopoly on marketing ideas, and with no audience to impress but us. (Consequently, it's BYOF and you must RSVP in order to reserve a big enough table.)

Because we value your perspective more than we care about what it says on your business card, our only requirement is that you participate your perspective whenever you do show up (oh yea, we also don't require you show up promptly at 2pm; you can arrive and leave any time you have to during the session. Incredibly, over 96% of participants stay the full session.)

More than just an idea exchange, The Jaded Marketer's Forum is also an unique networking opportunity that meets every other month after our first meeting at the same time (at least 50% of participants at each session will be different from the prior session); you'll receive reminders by email.

Topics to be discussed at our first meeting include:

1) F**king the help. It appears that hiring your vice president as a f**k buddy is not standard operating procedure. (At least it's not if you're a woman hiring a man.) Well, why not? What difference should it make as long as you get the job done? Potential sexual harassment liability aside, a better corporate policy should probably be relationship counseling since marketers will do what they do.

2) Marketing marketers. According to some other consulting firm, marketers today have the shortest shelf-life. You're accountable for too many different things to too many different people, and in the hubbub of all this accountability, it's easy to forget you've still got your own careers to think about. Whether you're trying to advance within an organization or get into one, you'll find this topic of extreme interest.

3) Media convergence. I say, let's stop talking about it as though that'll make it go away before you have to do anything about it. Let's do start talking about options and execution. The craziest ideas get the kupey doll.

4) "Collabetition". In an upcoming book, design guru, entrepreneur, and author Taiwo Odunsi articulates and defines his theory of "collabetition" - a state of performance that combines collaboration and competition for the betterment of all involved. Let's just hear what he has to say before we roll our eyes. Feel free to endorse or patronize without guilt; Tai is a seasoned, 6'2" creative and knows how to roll with (and deliver) punches.

5) Defining "edgy". Every company wants it for their brands yet none seem to have found an individual to reproduce it. Despite the party line, is it really a team effort, a lone ranger, or unduplicatable dumb luck? And how are we supposed to manage our teams, agencies, and vendors so that in their efforts to be edgy, they're not freaking cities out with unusually creative antics that look like terrorist acts?

If you have a topic in mind, please respond to this email and it will get added on to the agenda (at the host's discretion.)

So, leave your "clickthrus", "GRPs", and circulation figures in the office and join me for a cup of delicious conversation and tasty food, if for no other reason than you'd like to satisfy your curiosity and hunger for something new.

Happy Marketing! See you in 4 weeks.

Al Berrios
Managing Director
al berrios & co.

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