I’m biased, I know. But the coolest thing about the digiday event structure is the sheer amount of people on the panels and the amount of ideas flowing through the rooms. One attendee emailed me Thursday afternoon to say, “my head is spinning.” And this is an expert in social media who has worked with several major brands. I had to play a little catch up with myself after it was all over, so forgive the somewhat random observations here:

•    There is a huge gulf of creativity and effectiveness in the mobile space between campaigns that work and campaigns that don’t. I can’t figure out why that is, but when you see the numbers behind the Zippo digital lighter and the complete home run for the brand that Benjamin Moore hit, you wonder why a lot of other brands cant figure something out that even comes close. Because most of them don’t.

•    I was emceeing the Mobi awards Wednesday and the Benjamin Moore and Veeder + Perman folks were seated to my right. I was a little concerned about how detached they were during the event, but when they won, nobody in that room was more excited to win an award all night. Right after they accepted the award they were texting and taking pictures like teenagers. I loved that.

•    Digiday is largely absent of Power Point. In fact the moderated panels don’t have them at all. This makes every participant speak honestly, spontaneously and independently. They have no slides to lean on. It’s kind of a “conference unplugged.” I’ve always felt like PPT was a crutch for the speaker and Ambien for the attendees. I suggest companies consider this as Advertising Week kicks off.

•    One thing I didn’t like: It sounds cool to “make the mickey” about another company’s work, but save it for later. Making fun of other people’s work is not what people come to hear. I heard a little bit too much of that at digiday.

•    We were fortunate to have Brooke McMillan, Online Community Evangelist, from the Lance Armstrong Foundation / Livestrong to present Livestrong's approach to social media at the conference. The fact that the company exists to help other people is worth looking at but behind the altruism there is a rock sold social model. They have great brand imaging, they involve executives very actively, and it’s never predictable. Livestrong has a strong message and actually a limited core audience, but they come at that audience from different angles everyday. Good lesson there.

I was reading the other day that Warren Buffett would not participate in trying to bail out AIG last year because he doesn’t understand AIG’s business model and if a business model doesn’t make sense, he doesn’t invest. Now sometimes I go to conferences and I see a lot of those tragically flawed business models, but I don’t see any in the mobile and social spaces. They all seem to be sensible plays for (you might want to take a breath here) making money. What a concept.