Jennifer Lyon Bell at Interesting2007 from russelldavies on Vimeo.

Advertising can take over your life. Maybe it's time you met some people who didn't want to talk to you about ROIs, RFPs and their bosses penchant for not knowing a good idea if it bit him in the ass.

Luckily, if you live in New York, Interesting is waiting for you. The event invites "people to get on stage and share their passions, curiosities, obsessions, but mostly, what they're interested in."

Topics range from poetry to erotic film (see above). Maybe you have something interesting to say?

The event is run by a gaggle of creative thinkers at the Open Intelligence Agency. Now, they seem pretty darn interesting. Get more information and tickets here.

More: Advertising Week Addresses Your Concerns

Whether you love it or feel obligated to it, Advertising Week is a comin'. From September 22-26, the Big Apple will be jam packed with advertising heads click-clacking on Blackberrys and tracking down the open bars. From AdAge's quick fix list to Joesph Jaffe's diss on their Web 1.0 outlook, the festival took some shots. So, we decided to ask Matt Scheckner, Exec director of the Week, to address those concerns. After the jump, find about celebrity speakers (get your stonewashed jeans out - Jon Bon Jovi is coming), diversity, how AW is going to do some good and if there was is jazz in store for attendees.

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The Mediabistro Circus is coming and it's almost sold out. Get your tickets, if you can, here. The two-day event will help you understand what's happening at the crossroads of digital media and traditional media, why it matters to you, and how it affects the work that you do.

In addition to exploring big ideas in new media, MB wanted to raise the curtain and reveal the creative process behind those ideas. In that spirit, we hunted down the minds behind the new web-based TV series The All-For-Nots (see pic above), about a very quirky and cute Brooklyn indie-rock-pop-punk-Americana band.

Speakers at The Circus include Chris Anderson, Editor In Chief of Wired Magazine; Ken Barbieri, Director, Business Development, Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive; Chip Canter, VP Wireless Platform Development, NBC Universal Digital Distribution; Elisa Camahort, Co-founder and COO, Blogher; Nicholas Covey, Director of Insights, Nielsen Mobile; Regine Debatty, Writer, Curator, we-make-money-not-art.com;
Jon Fine, Media Columnist, Businessweek; Jim Roberts, Editor of Digital News, New York Times and a hell of a lot more.

Good times. Good times.

This thing happened over the weekend. It was called Blogger Social where some of your favorite ad bloggers came to play: Greg Verdino, Tangerine Toad, Joseph Jaffe, Rohit Bhargava, Tara Anderson, et al converged in New York City to be well, social. No, no. We weren't invited. That's cool. You know... We're not joiners anyway, so yeah.. we don't care. Nope. Don't care at all.

The event was a chance for blogger and social media freaks to meet up face to face and chat. What makes the event unique is that is 100% funded by registration fees, nets 0% profits and all planning time from the community is 100% donated. It's a purely social event. Not a conference. Just fun - social media ad biz style. You can see photos of the event here.

Good morning ad men and women. This morning, me, the OG Super Spy (not to be confused with Agent C or Down Low) will be spending my morning at the PSFK Conference. Hoorah! I'm not in an office chained to my computer wishing I wasn't on a conference call.

I'm looking forward to a rousing morning to shake me right out of my hangover and into creativity, ideas and inspiration. Wish me luck? The event is sold out with a ton of young and good looking bodies filling up the Art Director's Club here in New York City. Things are looking up already.Over the course of the day, I'll be posting some of the more interesting bits of the conference for your enjoyment.

I'm actually going to use Twitter. I know, weird right? You can follow me here.

We're intrigued by India's ad awards festival, Goafest, because, well... it's India for one thing, a burgeoning advertising industry play land and it also just sounds damn fun. Most of the big guys are making an appearance, except for Lowe and McCann Erickson. No one expected Lowe as they are frequent non-joiners, but McCann Erickson’s was supposed to pony up and play nice, as they have in the past. Not this year. The shop has declined their invitation.

Prasoon Joshi , chairman & regional executive creative director-Asia Pacific, for McCann basically said it was to expensive to get involved and derailed their energy. The entire broke ass McCann team will be present in Goa in spirit however.

Madan Mohan, Senior Vice-President, TBWA\India, said:

"I have now learnt that there won’t be a truce and that the cold war would continue. Again two significant names would be conspicuous by their absence. I only wish that these ‘issues’ were sorted out. It’s about participation of the industry as a whole, and two significant agencies backing off again this year only leads to disappointment."

We're hoping to get a report from one of the high level, American attendees at Goafest. Some pictures would be nice, too.

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We normally can't go to conference, because what? We're going to walk around with an "Agency Spy" name tag? That's we missed gawking at Shelly Lazarus at the recent Ogilvy Digital Conference, boo. However, Mamabistro has worked it all out for us to attend her upcoming panel on the new creative agency. Tell ya' what... our mom has gotten way into this advertising thing. Panelists include:

Frank Addante, founder, The Rubicon Project
Trevor Kaufman, CEO, Schematic
Gayle Maltz, director of new media, NBC Universal
Marc Ruxin, SVP, director, digital strategy and innovation, McCann Worldgroup
Guy Wieynk, managing director, AKQA
Dawn Winchester, chief clients services officer, R/GA
Megan McIlroy (moderator), reporter, Ad Age

Get more info here: Advertising: The New Creative Agency

WHEN Wednesday, March 26, 7-9 pm; Cocktail reception to follow
WHERE 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson St. (at Canal)
PRICE $75 ($65 for ) $5 surcharge at the door

See ya there!

We've heard some cavils from advertising folk about how disappointed they were at this year's SXSW events. The common complaint was that not enough agencies were involved at large - sponsoring panels, holding parties, talking the talk. Basically, the thought leadership passed on whole shebang. For those of you living under a rock, SXSW is more than a showcase for rockers and film heads. The event also holds an interactive schedule chocked full of useful panels such as "What Teens Want Online & On Their Phones" and other talks that might not be so handy to ad folk like "Quit Your Day Job and Vlog".

Speakers at various panels (oddly mostly on the film side) included: Hank Blumenthal - Schematic; Peter Cole - AKQA, Joesph Crump - Avenue A/Razorfish; and Ian Schafer - Deep Focus.

Sounds like a bummer, right? Our guess is that traditional agencies don't consider SXSW a serious venue to get to the down and dirty. The staffers that do go are probably thinking -"Hell, yeah, I'm going to South By... I'm gonna get crunk. Catch Band of Horses and maybe parlay my way into a new gig at Schematic." Oh! Avenue A had a party, which looks, you know... like an advertising party. Rah.

More interesting is the video above of the interview between Mark Zuckerberg and Sarah Lacy that turned into a shit show when "audience members, apparently tired of constant interruptions by Lacy and references to her own projects in the interview, essentially said they weren't going to sit for such lame questions and demanded to ask their own." Scroll to about six minutes and fifteen seconds when it really gets interesting.

Mamabistro is all over this advertising shit. It's our influence. Maybe. Sort of. Probably not. It's probably you, the readers, influence. Our parent company has decided to host a panel discussion just for you guys about how to incorporate new technology into your advertising campaigns.

Advertising: The New Creative Agency

WHEN Wednesday, March 26, 7-9 pm; Cocktail reception to follow
WHERE 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson St. (at Canal)
PRICE $75 ($65 for ) $5 surcharge at the door

The Whole Point: As consumers embrace new media, businesses are developing new messages and platforms to communicate with their customers. Technology offers unlimited possibilities for more precise targeting, but which platforms will be the most successful? Hear from innovators and experts in interactive media and digital advertising about what lies ahead.

Panelists will include:

Frank Addante, founder, The Rubicon Project
Trevor Kaufman, CEO, Schematic
Gayle Maltz, director of new media, NBC Universal
Marc Ruxin, SVP, director, digital strategy and innovation, McCann Worldgroup
Guy Wieynk, managing director, AKQA
Dawn Winchester, chief clients services officer, R/GA
Megan McIlroy (moderator), reporter, Ad Age

In the mean time, check out the video above from TED featuring Lawrence Lessig talking about creative development and the law. We heart him. A lot.

Chief Edelman techonophile Steve Rubel has beaten us to the punch (what can we say - we've been so busy this week), in posting the spring line up of conferences available to you advertising folks. We've narrowed his list to the US only and added a few of our own. Conferences can be a great source of networking and stimulus. They can also just be a fabulous excuse to get out of the office and breathe a little. So, pick one. Get out a bit.

Didn't make the TED list? Right across the street is a new conference called BIL - March 1-2, California that could be very interesting indeed. Here's the concept:

"BIL loves TED. TED is a great place to sit and listen to interesting ideas. Many of those ideas make it online, and millions get to experience them.

The catch for many of us is that TED is $6,000, which is too expensive for most people, including a great number with good ideas worth spreading. BIL has been created as a free space for people with ideas to come together and share them.

Our event is self-organizing, emergent, and anarchic. Nobody is in charge. If you want to come just show up. If you've got an idea to spread start talking. If someone is saying something good, stop and listen.

We hope BIL can be a perfect match to TED."

AdAge Digital Conference - March 18-19 in New York

PSFK Conference - March 27 in New York

Ad:tech - April 15-17, San Francisco

WOMMU - May 8-9, Florida

Mediabistro Circus - May 20-21 in New York