A few minutes ago I received an email questionnaire informing me that "The Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) has once again partnered with George P. Johnson Experience Marketing to conduct this essential and timely research. This year's study is being co-produced with The Jordan Edmiston Group, Inc. and with support from the Event Marketing Institute."

The first question of this survey is:

Which one of the following best describes the role of "digital marketing" when you are planning an event?

a)      A leading tactic
b)      A vital component of the plan
c)       Taken under consideration with other mediums
d)      Usually an afterthought
e)      Don't really consider it

I was shocked to see this question and equally shocked to read the selection of possible answers!

First, allow me to present the facts, which reflect the reality of the media business in 2010, the decade we just entered, as it relates to the facts of our company.

SYS-CON Media executed a five-year transition plan from January 2004 through December 2008. We transformed our company into a pure "new media" business in five years, which is now owned and operated by Ulitzer, Inc. The last print magazine published by SYS-CON Publications, Inc. was in December 2008. Ulitzer.com was launched about a year ago with more than 500 micro sites including the 16 year-old www.sys-con.com brand, which is now a property of Ulitzer, Inc.

Ulitzer.com offers roughly 1.4 million articles, including the online libraries of all SYS-CON print magazines from the past 16 years.

Ulitzer.com is also the world's first and only revolutionary new media platform designed for original content on any subject in any language.

For example, Dmitriy Stepanov who joined Ulitzer earlier today is the 9,875th Ulitzer author on our new media platform.

The largest new technology event in the world, Cloud Expo, is the first conference to be born, produced and presented completely on the Ulitzer platform.

The Cloud Expo home page updates automatically around the clock, with the most recent feature stories, articles, product reviews, news and blogs posted by the world's most influential authors on their subject matters! You may find all faculty members and speakers from Cloud Expo conferences on Ulitzer pages.

Ulitzer will eventually replace all media on all subjects you can think of in any language around the world.

Question: Are You Planning "Digital Marketing" When You Are Planning an Event?

Here are my thoughts on this question. At this very moment, some people on planet Earth are switching from gas to electricity, some people are printing technology magazines and mailing them through the post office, some people are reading the New York Times with their Sunday bagels.

As far as we are concerned, traditional media tools are long gone; our company began this transition 6 years ago and completed it a year and a half ago.

If I were asked this question and expected to give an answer, my reply would be:

f)       none of the above

Let's take "Cloud Expo" for example. The most popular technology conference of the new decade was born on "digital media" and produced and presented using "digital media" assets.

I can't comprehend that any event producer anywhere in the world today would answer this question by picking any one of the five available options presented. "A leading tool?" What do you mean by "a leading tool?" What other tools would you possibly have in this day and age? This question, the survey itself and its participants belong to the last decade.

I personally don't use email anymore; I communicate through "Twitter."\

We don't do press releases unless we have to; we tweet stories to our roughly 12,000 followers in 8 channels. The news gets amplified to hundreds of thousands instantly.

Even during Cloud Expo, we reach more people by Twitter than the announcements we make through loudspeakers in the convention centers.

I would love to contact the people who are conducting this survey and ask them if any company answered their first question as "don't really consider it."

In an age where I personally hail a cab at an airport through Twitter, I can't possibly comprehend which century bubble those people might be living in.