Russell Davies is an all round thinker and iconoclast. He is speaking at Widgety Goodness. This is from his most recent column in Campaign:

Google Ad Widget hints at a deeper threat to the media status quo. It’s a little bit of technology that allows you to put ads on your site as easily as you embed a YouTube video. It’s not about media placement; it’s about publisher choice. If the ad “works”, they get paid; if not, they don’t. But because publishers tend to know their audiences well and have a good sense of what sort of advertising they’ll respond to, the ad placement is almost bound to be better than the typically scatter-shot banner ad buy. I’d always thought that media people were the least likely to be swept away by media disruption, but maybe I’m wrong, maybe they’re as vulnerable as the rest of us.

and does lots of stuff:

Russell was born in Derby, enjoyed an uneventful childhood, did college, all that. After failing as a popstar and a joke writer he ended up in advertising. Worked at good places and bad. Tried to do ‘interactive marketing’ way before anyone was interested. Ended up at Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Oregon. Worked on Microsoft for a number of years, launching things like Office and Explorer. Then lived through the dotcom boom on the West Coast. Moved back to London in 2001 to work for w+k London. Did good things like Run London for Nike and all those good Honda ads. Then went to work for Nike as Global Consumer Planning Director. Quit that in June 2006 and helped set up a global, small business called the Open Intelligence Agency doing thinking and consulting for people and brands. He also writes a blog about fried food and cafes called eggbaconchipsandbeans and various blogs about brands, ideas and stuff here.

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