Hey everyone. I wanted to post some comments on yesterdays The Art of Marketing one day conference held in Calgary on June 14, 2010. The speaker lineup was very good. In fact, only two of the six made my head nod a few times - not too shabby. To get this series of posts started I wanted to highlight a few things from the conference that definitely resonated as the keys to effective marketing going forward. Each speaker touched on at least these points: 1) Brands need to start listening better and engaging more As Gary Vaynerchuk said so eloquently, brands needs to start fucking caring. But in order to do this we need to start listening on a deeper level and communicating with our customers on a personal scale. More on this later. 2) Things are changing at a rate we've never, ever seen before This was pointed out a few times during the presentations. Over and over we heard the same thing - that technology and the avenues in which we communicate with our audiences are changing at a blinding rate. Our job is to keep up. More on this later. 3) Innovate or die Excuse the cliché, but as each presenter said in their speech (in one form or another), creativity and ideas are one thing, to implement and innovate is another. We must look to the past, only to look forward and realize what we need to do to gain momentum and succeed. More on this later. 4) Get off our seats That's right. Get off our seats and do something. It always amazes me how often people go to these things for a "recharge" only to come back to the stark white office and fall into routine - again and again. Take advantage of what we learned yesterday. Get off your ass. Make something happen. More on this later. In all, great day was definitely had at Calgary's Art of Marketing conference. Thanks to Ismail for making Sally Hogsheads presentation that much more worth our time. Love it buddy! For more on the conference, check out the twitter posts by searching #taom. Cheers, D @djwald