IAB Leadership council

The IAB Europe credentials were established yet again. It was a great pleasure to meet up with familiar faces and to meet and greet some new ones. I was glad to extend a warm welcome and a big hello to Stan Faryna and Ana-Maria Ilie who run the newly formed IAB Romania - thanks for dinner that was great fun - Stan, Ana and Julia. They are now one of several fledgling IABs who have the benefits of all the other IABs to support them. Indeed IAB Europe now has over 20 countries within its reach.

It was also great to meet Erica from IAB US and Erin who works for IAB EU in Brussels two legal beagles. Erica is Senior Manager of Industry Initiatives and Legal Affairs - her main responsibility is the management of standards, legal affairs and has been responsible for implementing a number of legal changes across Europe. She kindly agreed to be our first video interviewee and I had great fun talking to her in a fireside chat at the Over Seas League in Piccadilly. Erin was able to discuss her role - also on video - and the benefits that IAB members receive - I was fascinated by what she had to say - and some will be shown online soon - see below. The surprising thing to me was that although I have been working with the IAB for the best part of 10 years - much of what she was said was news to me - I had heard rumours of legal services that we were all benefitting from but it was not until meeting Erin in person and discussing these issues further with Erica that it all made sense.

Erin and Erica were really interesting to talk to, they had different perspectives one working in Europe, the other in the States, bu they share common goals and it is physical events like these that really make the difference in terms of expanding awareness and to communicating the possibilities. It is always great to meet interesting people - and that, for me is the main purpose of these events. I think I, like many others, certainly Stan Faryno of IAB Romania left the event with renewed enthusiasm and excitement for our great industry.

I undertook 17 interviews in all, wrote them all to video and when I got home - I discover that those 17 people have given me 8.7 Giga Bytes of footage for me now to edit. I expect to be out from my bunker in about a month - we hope to publish all the videos online at the IAB Europe web site.

It was a great day and the list of people I videod included Erica and Erin Lynch of Europe Analytica, based in Brussels, Belgium, Anthony House of Google, Stephanie Carr of SearchWorks, John Myers of Search Latitude, Antonio Traugott Hernandez, Director General of IAB Spain, based in Madrid and Barcelona, Patrick IAB Belgium, Roy Patel, MD of MetrixLab, Caroline Vogt of Microsoft, Marc Hemple, co CEO of Interactive Communication Group, Switzerland, Nate Elliot from Jupiter Research, Amy and Stan from IAB Romania, Jo from Conde Nast, Peter Mason - Advanced International Media and of course the relentless Danny Meadows Klue. They were all great - it was my pleasure, time well spent, thanks very much to you all. having just seen the rushes we are looking good to go!

So as ever, my message to all non IAB members is join - the internet trade is at its beginning, today we can still change the world - participate - or miss out. For all those IAB members that could not attend - we missed you - but don't worry - key information will probably be published on the IAB Europe web site
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See you all soon. David