In case you missed it: 3rd Annual IMA Marketing Summit

Did you miss the 3rd Annual IMA Marketing Summit? M.S. in Integrated Marketing candidate Valentina Martinez has you covered!

Every year during the spring semester the IMA (Integrated Marketing Association) organizes a Marketing Summit filled with workshops, panels, and networking opportunities. This year it was all about disrupting the industry by being innovative, creative, passionate and savvy when it comes to technology and the digital world.

In case you missed it, you may read the highlights and employer advice of each session below.

“Disruptive Thinking”

Luke Williams – NYU Marketing Professor and Founder of the W.R. Berkley Innovation Lab

The morning started in a highly energized conversation about disruptive thinking with NYU Stern Professor, Luke Williams. He taught us that money is not the only form of currency. Ideas are currency, too. The challenge is to have more innovative capital to spend.

Innovation can be compared to cooking as the willingness to look at the ingredients available (data, resources, technology, etc.) and arrange or rearrange them in a way that makes them more valuable to come up with new “recipes” that are your ideas. Luke used this example to explain how most of us learn to cook by following old recipes instead of using new ingredients, so the opportunity goes wasted.

In just one sentence, disruptive thinking is about paying attention to the things that are ignored and unbroken, and try to change them for the best.

“Innovation & Entrepreneurship Panel”

Yurik Boykir, CEO at Gravity Media
LaToya Smith, Founder/Chief Content Strategist at Brass City Media
Chuck Welch, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Rupture Studio
David Vinjamuri, NYU Marketing Professor
Patrick Raymond (Moderator), General Manager at TraceMedia, NYU Marketing Professor

This amazing line up of speakers taught us about passion and doing the things you love. Panelists shared their advice on building a strong career and developing your skills. They suggested on picking a skill you like that you are good at and becoming a master at it. That will give you advantage. They also talked about always thinking about what your next move will be. When looking for a job, the trick is not to get discouraged when getting a no for an answer. You must be willing to look the way around.

“Social Media Marketing Panel”

Glenn Meyer, Senior Analyst at Sapient
Bant Breen, Founder & CEO at Qnary
Kerry O’Grady, Assistant Clinical Professor at NYU PRCC
Garvin Reid (Moderator), Career Coach at the NYU SPS Wasserman Center

This session started with an overview of the social media role in an organization. With the use of it you get instant feedback, which is highly valuable for testing or launching products. About the future of social media, they believe it will be vastly video-based, with a big dominance of apps such as Snapchat.

The panelists shared their tips for students looking for jobs in the social media world. First, you must be a social media expert, stay up to date with trends, and educate yourself. Second, it is crucial that you know how to write properly. Third, pay attention to what you post in your social media platforms. Recruiters not only look at your pictures but also your tone of voice, typos, and how you relate with other people. And fourth but not least, be flexible and adaptable, learn fast and say yes to opportunities.

“The Future of the Web”

David Shing, Digital Prophet at AOL

The afternoon got boosted with the “Digital Prophet”, David Shingy, who started out by telling us to always be reactive, relevant, and remarkable.

Centered on the fact that 75% of purchase decisions are based on emotions, Shingy made us reflect how as a brand, we must think of our audiences. Everyone is distracted in America. In fact, he believes everyone suffers from a new form of ADHD in the present, or what he calls “Always Distracted Hyper Doer”. Therefor, we must know how to be both content creators and curators in order to produce an authentic dialogue at the right time and place, in the right way and for the right audience.

“Design in Marketing 101”

To close the sessions of the day, we immersed ourselves in a graphic design workshop for marketing and user experience, which was valuable for branding purposes.

“Networking Event”

After a productive and informative day, students got an opportunity to network among their peers and employers.

The summit inspired us to work hard on our goals as marketers, become more proactive in our job search, see things in a different perspective, overcome challenges, and trust in ourselves.

We cannot wait to see what the next summit will teach us about! See you next year…