Oliver Wendell Holmes was the first to refer to Boston as the "Hub" of the solar system over 100 years ago. Today, FutureM lays claim to Boston being the "Hub" of today's marketing solar system!
The world of marketing has changed more in the last 5 years than it has in the last 50. The advertisements, email spam, direct mail, cold calls and other interruptions that have worked so well for the last 50 years are becoming less-and-less effective as modern humans get better-and-better at blocking them out. Businesses need to completely rethink the way they reach them market in today's fast-changing solar system.
Some of the world's leading thinkers and businesses that are on the cutting edge of the new ways to reach customers are based here in Boston, including Chris Brogan, David Meerman Scott, Chris Hughes, Larry Weber, Edward Boches, BzzAgent, Blue State Digital, HubSpot, along with a cadre of thinkers at MIT, Harvard, and other local universities. FutureM is a weeklong celebration (October 4-8) of that new marketing thinking based in Boston -- it is a series of conferences, unconferences, presentations, meetups, tweetups, etc that all revolve around the future of marketing.
There already are 10 events set-up for that week, including The HubSpot User Group on October 5th and the Inbound Marketing Summit on October 6th and 7th. If you are a marketer, I recommend you book your flights now to be in Boston that entire week this year and every year going forward. You can find the list of events here.
- Brian Halligan