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The first day ended up being far busier than I thought, so a proper recap will have to come later. The first day ended up being far better than I expected and the closing panel, “Who Owns Word of Mouth? (And Who Should?)” was far and away the best.

I’ll go into detail later — this one requires me to noodle it a bit more so I can really explain why it ended up being the most useful of the day for me. At the post-conference cocktail/networking social thing I got interviewed on camera on my thoughts on the first day. There is no doubt that footage is probably the most embarrassing thing ever and if they end up using any of it, my television career is over. Hopefully day two will be as useful and thought provoking.

I’ll be heading over to Las Vegas next week to attend the Word of Mouth Marketing Summit 2007, my first such conference. I haven’t been to an industry conference in a long time, but this one should be a good one to come back to not just because Jeff Bell is the opening keynote. I hope to run into John Porcaro from Gamerscore Blog there and have some time to catch up on the state of our industry, among other things. Rick Murray, one of my former colleagues (and former head of my group) at Edelman will be there as well speaking during the “Who Owns Word of Mouth? (And Who Should?)” panel.

Hopefully I’ll learn a few new things and the $50 I’m setting aside for gambling lasts the couple days I’m in town.