Cheil Worldwide Interactive Experts

The past year has totally changed how I work and think as an interactive marketer. Most everything I know is really no longer valid. As a Creative Director, I'm supposed to be the one who knows it all, has all the answers, and big ideas, right? And of course I do! *snickers* But its hard to keep up. My netvibes page is my homepage. It's up on my screen 24/7. It displays all my data in real time: twitter, facebook, RSS feeds, email, flickr, and so on. It's endless stimilus. There's not enough time in the day to read and see everything I want to absorb.

So I got this brainiac of an idea from a collegue of mine, Mark Kronenberg, who heads up our planning group at Cheil Worldwide in New Jersey. He asked why I'm not delegating the tasks of becoming experts to my team. Hmmmmm. Interesting. *rubs chin*

So. Here it is. The experts group @ Cheil Interactive.

The assignment: Pick an area within the current online landscape, start a blog, del.icio.us, or other form of RSS to track your research and insights.

The outcome: A group of already talented art directors, designers, writers and animators who really know their sh*t. Instead of me being the almighty know-it-all, I now have a team with specialized areas of expertise that I can reach out to for ideas, knowledge and inspiration.

We're into our third month of the project now, and it's really taking shape nicely. I set up a public netvibes page so all their RSS feeds can be aggregated into one place.


The work we're doing really reflects the insights and learning of this group. By the end of the year, I'm pretty confident we'll have best practices in each area that will really strengthen our interactive offering.

THE EXPERTS:
Chris M: Sharing Communities
Matt B: Advergaming and Virtual Worlds
Brian G: Social Networks
Johanna R: User Generated Content and Video
Bernell C: Online Media Trends
Nat C: Web 2.0
Jeff B: Blogging
Kay G: Podcasting
Soo B: Integration

The company is jazzed about it too. Other departments want to get involved and start their own, so I'll be adding their feeds as well as time goes on.

hmmmm, now I've got 10 more RSS feeds to read. =)
Watch us here: netvibes.com/cheil_usa