Vagabonding. Marketing. Tales.
giuseppe caltabiano (@giusec)'s blog
As a summary of my activities for DMEXCO 2018
Short comment on my previous post. In January we will leave for 2 years (naaaahhhh, 2 weeks) to Patagonia. Flying to Buenos Aires and back 2 weeks later from Santiago. Patagonia and all its wilderness in the middle. Argentina. And Chile. Yeah, it’s a super-cool trip. But wait, it’s even more cool, because we’ll leave with NatGeo. I mean, it’s a personalised private NatGeo expedition! Yes, a lifetime experience.
It is Anto’s gift for my 50th birthday. I love her. I will never be able to repay her for this. You know those lifetime dreams, things that you desire for years and years? Exactly, this was my desire. I had to wait all my life. Thank you, my love.
I think a better post will follow, sometime, with more details about the trip; not sure when. But at least you know, for now, what the hell the previous post was about.
I am writing this post with Gutenberg, the new WordPress’ Medium-like editor. Now a plug-in, the plan is a full integration with WordPress 5. Well, I’m probably not doing justice to the new editor saying that it’s just like Medium. It’s much more, thanks to the concept of the blocks – you can learn more about the blocks, here.
Gutenberg has three planned stages. The first, aimed for inclusion in WordPress 5, focuses on the post editing experience and the implementation of blocks. This initial phase focuses on a content-first approach. The use of blocks allows you to focus on how your content will look without the distraction of other configuration options. This ultimately will help all users present their content in a way that is engaging, direct, and visual.
These foundational elements will pave the way for stages two and three, planned for the next year, to go beyond the post into page templates and ultimately, full site customization.
For now, I’m simply enjoying the new experience (yet, I cannot understand how I should manage things like content distribution – eg. Twitter and LinkedIn – directly from Gutenberg…)
I have been surprisingly silent in the last 3 months. When this happens, either you are in big troubles or new exciting events are taking over. For me, the second.
My professional life has been turned around by a tornado. I started my own business in September, after 8 very disappointing months in the SaaS world. Good vision, wrong people, unprepared management, miserable people-management practices, structural inability to make things right. Leaving the startup wasn’t difficult; it was probably the best decision I could ever make.
I found myself nearly without a job at 48. Luckily it didn’t last long. Thanks to my (best) half, I approached the situation with a positive attitude and I simply ‘let the flow hitting me‘. I closed some great deals in few months with large tech enterprises. Met some of the best marketers on the planet. Started an insightful strategic collaboration with LinkedIn and its content marketing agency. Opened collaborations in my home town, Milan. Then, one month ago, luck struck me again. A new great opportunity and a new start. Still keeping a slice of my own business, which is giving me that wonderful sense of freedom I never had in 20 years of corporate life.
At personal level, another tornado. This. And plans for a future trip I have always dreamed of, since I can even remember.
So, I am still not entirely sure if I am back. Yeah. Probably I am.
Just few weeks ago I started a new collaboration with The Story Group/Lifonti & Company, an Italian agency who is literally paying a lot of attention at the content marketing space. I will support them and run their content marketing efforts in Italy. At the same time this collaboration will give me the opportunity to closely look at the country from a digital marketing perspective.
Had the opportunity to chat with many people in the last several weeks and the feeling is that interest for content marketing in Italy is rapidly growing. At least, this is my perception. First content factories have been established, companies and agencies are starting to think about content and move investments from traditional advert to content creation. Still, the market requires lot of education and this is the reason why this is a good momentum to be in countries like Italy.
Definitely not my intention to leave London; but Milan is my home town after hall, and these market evolutions are something that I am closely investigating.
And here is some press stuff. In Italian of course: Engage, PubblicitaItalia, IdeeIdeas, BrandNews, YouMark, ImpresaInternazionale, Assocomunicatori.