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here are never ending jokes about the relationship between media and advertising people. Mostly they embrace the relations on how media people worship the ad men, and the ad men become the slaves of brand owners, whom are the fans of the media itself.

This unique relationship can become an even more intimate one with the ecosystem change, due to advancement of technology that changes consumer culture. Ultimately, this is the true meaning of '€œconnect deeper'€, where technology collides with content and consumers. They build the value together, and enable crowd sourcing in fostering engagement to a deeper level.

Best of all, the technology now can supply better justification to measure the effectiveness of the program and campaign.

So what makes the Asia Pacific Media Forum (APMF) different from the other conferences that I have experienced as a speaker/session leader, a member of committee and a delegate?

In 2006, I was invited to be a speaker at APMF. The first thing I felt, after being picked up at the airport and arriving at the hotel, was that this event is unmistakably a product of a labor of love.

The process of choosing topics to deliver on stage becomes a sequence of excitement sans stress; after all it is in Bali, and I presented to people who were on the same wavelength and shared passion.

More exciting still is that the committee treats us as a close friend (although the treatment can be classified as VIP-worthy) but even more important is that we can socialize with others as friends. This convivial is shared by many well-known speakers from all over the world, including Kevin Kelly and Rory Shuterland.

In 2010, I came on board the APMF team as the program director. To my surprise, I found that the main speakers are not paid by the committee. With the conference an already established and respected name, they simply want to participate and be on the program. As program director, my job is to communicate to the speakers the details of the topic, the flow of the contents and the multimedia support.

It is emphasized for us not to sell but to inspire, not to teach but to share. The conference becomes a place for speakers to become themselves.

I have subsequently become even more involved in the committee, and in doing so have found that we are just a bunch of like-minded people who truly care to create synergy between the advertising and media world. This ambience should be preserved to the next generation of the committee, so that hand in hand we can weather the troubled times of media and advertising together.

Jerry Justianto
Chairman Association of Asia Pacific Advertising Media, BOA APMF