I’m winding down the work year and as I do so, this will be my final post for 2009 in an effort to take a breath and recharge for 2010.  What a year it’s been!  This year was my first effort at a full time blog and marks a deeper dive into the Social Web. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to share experiences through speakerships, interviews, and even a podcast on Wired.  The main thing I’ve enjoyed throughout this year’s work is the opportunity to learn from the smart people I come into contact with on a daily basis.  There are a lot of hard working individuals inside and outside of Intel that are always innovating.  I’m lucky that my role here allows a peek into many different projects and programs that are pushing the bounds of media and marketing.

On the Intel front, we’ve had some very good ‘best effort’ programs that have expanded our horizons into Cause Marketing w/ our FaceBook ‘Vote for a Cause‘ Program, unique activations that bring our brand campaign to life (thank you Maggie Mason!), and Social Platform building with our latest effort - My Life Scoop.  We’ve also had some fun and brought you new features on my favorite Internet music source,  Pandora (‘Add Variety’) because we thought it was important as a ‘Sponsor of Tomorrow’ to enhance your experience on a great site.

Finally, we did something very different at Intel.  Something we’ve never done before.  We marketed our BRAND – Intel, and not just focused on the next product to hit the street.  We want you to live a better life through technology, and we needed to make sure that people understood what the Intel brand means and how we help with that. This shift in campaign focus has been a lot of fun as it’s allowed many of us at Intel to share in a common message. Deborah Conrad, our VP and GM of Corporate Marketing states that message best:

“What Intel develops today leads the path toward a better tomorrow.”

I think that people are beginning to see us in a different way and gain a better understanding of how exactly we make their lives better through technology.

2009 was the year that the Social Web exploded.  Those that were aware of the power of Social Media, made the prediction early on.  I think you will see in 2010 that ‘Social’ becomes mainstream and is a standard component to every marketing program rather than a new, never been done before, ‘feature’.  Consumers want to share, they want their voices to be heard, and they want to digest content on their time and on the device of their choosing. Looking back we saw the rapid decline of print.  Looking forward, we’re staring at the monumental rise of mobile.  Those media institutions that adapt to the shift in media will live to fight another day, and those that don’t – will not.

I’m proud of the work we’ve done this year, I’m ‘smarter’ (thanks to the gracious sharing of others) in the space I specialize in, and I’m looking forward to more learning and innovation in 2010.  Happy Holidays all…see you in the New Year!

Todd Wasserman of BrandWeek interviewed me last week about our newly released MyLifeScoop program (“With LifeScoop, Intel’s A Publisher“).  I think Todd did a pretty good job of relating the essence of what MyLifeScoop is about, however I think some of the intent of the site gets blurred when he focuses on the ‘advertising’ portion.  Yes – it is a media buy – but not in the ubiquitous display sense.

What were trying to do here is show the relevance of technology to your everyday life.  Intel clearly plays a part in that technology discussion as a result of our processors being the ‘brains’ of many of the leading PCs and smaller form-factor devices (like Netbooks) on the market today.  We worked very closely with Federated Media and our Agency of Record, OMD, to develop a program that is not simply about pushing Intel – that can be done through a display buy on an ad network or a commercial on broadcast television.  Our interest with MyLifeScoop is developing a relationship with an audience that will use a site like this to find useful ways to incorporate technology into their daily routine and share their own technology tips and tricks with others through a ‘community’ section (launching soon).

I think Mike Arauz of Undercurrent sums it up very well in his quote at the end of Todd’s piece when he says:

“If you’re on the Internet and I can’t see what you’re reading and what you’re sharing, I don’t know who you are.  The same is true for brands.”

I couldn’t agree more.  With MyLifeScoop, we’ve created an opportunity to share material that we feel is relevant to your life and your technology choices.  We hope you find it to be a relevant resource to pass along to your network and to participate in the site through social connection points.  Give Todd’s article a read and please visit MyLifeScoop to see if there’s a tip or trick to fit your technology need.

As a digital marketer I’m always looking for trends in the vehicles that I use in my quarterly and yearly campaigns.  Obviously the growth of Twitter in 2009 has been tremendous.  You’re seeing adoption from all walks of life and across many usage models.  What’s interesting, however, is that we have seen a trend over the last four months that shows the growth of this micro-blogging service as slowed…and effectively flat-lined in the US:

This is a curious phenomenon, as Mashable reports since the service has “entered pop culture, it’s been the web buzzword of the year, everyone from NFL players to rock stars are tweeting. We’ve seen hundreds of exciting services and ideas built around Twitter in the past two years.” (Courtesy: Mashable).

I continue to build a Twitter component into all of our Social Media programs that come out of my group at Intel.  From my perspective, it’s a valuable and easy way for individuals to contribute to a community that we are developing – such as the MyLifeScoop program I blogged about earlier this week.  While growth has slowed for the moment, there is no doubt in my mind that as Ev and Biz continue to broker agreements with industry leaders we will see audience uptake spike again.

Today, in conjunction with Federated Media, Intel has launched a new program called ‘MyLifeScoop‘.  What is this, you ask?  I think the blog post on FM’s site announcing this says it best:

“…a practical guide for how people use technology in their everyday lives – home, school, cooking, movies, pictures, multimedia, email, storage, you name it. This is a practical, useful tool that aggregates all the best news, information, tips, tricks and how-tos. And, what’s more, it’s all updated in real-time, so it has the newest, coolest, freshest, most useful information available.”

We’re just getting started – I encourage you to check out MyLifeScoop on your own to see how you can improve your everyday life through the use of technology.  Remember – amazing things happen with Intel Inside.