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1. For all the talk of how wonderful social media is, Fred Wiersema, Institute for the Study of Business Markets Fellow and co-author of The Discipline of Market Leaders and author of Customer Intimacy, argued that B-to-B buyers don't want to be tweeted with and inundated with blog coverage. "In the consumer field it's wonderful, but for B-to-B it's not quite on track," he said. That said, he argued during the conference-opening presentaiton that the B-to-B field generally uses engagement more powerfully than consumer marketers - although B-to-B could stand to use more emotional messaging in marketing.

2. Anytime you bring in a heavy-hitting CMO you expect him or her to offer some insightful takeaway lessons from their perch at the top. But because they are such high-level CMOs, sometimes they come across as infallible geniuses during their presentations. So it was refreshing to see General Electric CMO Beth Comstock was so down to earth during her BMA presentation. Yes, she provided some takeaways that were referenced again and again during the conference like gospel. Of course she paid some nice lip service to GE marketing endeavors, including a bit of show-and-tell involving a YouTube campaign. But Comstock also admitted, in a rather humble manner, that attempts to marry IT and marketing have been painful and not as successful as she'd like. It's just nice to know that even a huge company with 5,000 plus marketers doesn't have all the answers and will acknowledge where there are shortcomings.

3. The "Engaging the Business Buyer of the Not-Too-Distant Future" panel was pretty epic as far as roundtables are concerned, involving seven participants (including a moderator) and covering sustainability, social media and other far-reaching topics. There were some solid nuggets throughout despite a neccessary surface-level approach, most notably at the end, when moderator Diane Brady, senior editor and content chief for Bloomberg BusinessWeek, asked each panelist for three tips to think about for engaging prospective buyers. Among the tips: understand customers as intimately as possible and revolve technology around that (Enquiro CEO Gord Hotchkiss); make sure your marketing materials are easily discoverable online (GlobalSpec CEO Jeff Killeen); be humble and transparent when it comes to sustainability (Charlene Lake, chief sustainability officer and senior vice president of public affairs, AT&T); and measure online success through outcomes, not eyeballs (Jim Lecinski, managing director of U.S. sales and service for Google).

4. Keith Pigues, senior vice president and CMO for Ply Gem, in addition to presenting one of the most buzzed-about presentations, offered one of the most eye-opening moments, having people stand up to signify a yes answer to a yes or no query, only to sit down when they reached no for an answer. So when Pigues read the first statement - "We know specifically how we help customers make more money." - practically everyone was on their feet. Four statements later -
"We understand how we will make our customers more money in the future" - all but five people were in their seats. Pigues' advice: effectively communicate the value created for customers, understand what the customer really needs and find new opportunities for growth. In order to engage those customers, Pigues said marketers need to have a new conversation that the customer will better engage with, to get the organization to embrace the structure of that conversation, and then to change the company for the better, using this new customer-engagement model as a guide.

5. Motorola CMO Eduardo Conrado (star of a Marketing News feature this spring) and David Srere, co-president, CEO and chief strategy officer for Siegel+Gale, tag teamed a presentation that closely examined a seemingly simple but utterly important topic -- defining the company's purpose. "It's the single most important determinant of long-term marketing success," Srere said, and Conrado went so far as to say that this was the best project he has ever worked on for Motorola, greater than any campaign. Srere went on to say that companies should toss out convoluted mission statements and create a vision that says a lot in a simple, easy to remember way, so that all employees and business partners get it.

6. Marketing leaders at Molex, Schneider Electric, Volvo Construction Equipment and USG gathered for the "Engaging Channel Partner" breakout session Thursday morning, discussing their companies and marketing maneuvers (including the social media stratety at Volvo and a new website for Schneider Electric). One of the more insightful exchanges during the Q&A came when panel members discussed how they expressed different ways to solicit feedback from distribution partners, from having quarterly meetings to conducting customer webinars where input is solicited (a tactic taken at USG).

7. Fresh off a plane from London, Philip Clement, Global Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Aon Corporation, gave the very first public presentation about a sexy, but potentially suspect, $132 million, three-year sponsorship opportunity for the Manchester United soccer/football team. Clement made some good arguments about how aligning ia company that has offices in 120 countries with one of the most recognized teams in the world's most popular sports (the team has 333 million fans worldwide, according to Clement) will simplify messaging compared with multiple sponsorships, in addition to doing wonders for brand awareness. But while Clement stressed that he is devoted to metrics-proven marketing, I'm still unclear how this sponsorship, taking effect this summer, will really impact Aon sales and help educate the company's offering, not to mention how Aon can effectively measure whether this initiative is a revenue-generating success or not. Time will tell whether Aon scores or fumbles on this one.

8. Northwestern University marketing professor Andris Zoltners hosted three marketers with sales backgrounds for an "Engaging Sales" discussion, lending context with some eye-opening statistics indicating the massive amount of people working in sales in the U.S. (20 million) compared with marketers (675,000). But while marketing may be outnumbered, they have to work hard to partner with this powerful group, in order to make the sales and marketing at a company even more powerful. To do that, the marketing leaders from Honeywell, Owens Corning and Grainger suggested understanding the customer and making relevant offers to entice sales' to participate in marketing, among other steps.

9. Better get used to that "new consumer" mindset, Ed O'Boyle, global practice leader, brand and customer engagement, for Gallup Consulting, said in his late Thursday afternoon presentation. According to a Gallup poll of 1,000 U.S. consumers, 40% say they will not change their spending patterns as the economy improves, O'Boyle said. That will have a ripple effect in B-to-B, so O'Doyle suggested that marketers ensure they have a clear definition of their organization's brand promise, how that promise is different from the competition's, and how they can deliver on that brand promise, in order to drive sales.

10. Pat LaPointe , managing partner at MarketingNPV presented a topic on one of the more important, and sometimes underscrutinized, aspects of marketing - measurement. Pity that the BMA placed his presentation at the end of the day Thursday, when attendees tended to zone out (as evident by some tweets about the presentation). Measurement is too vital to be pushed aside to the end of a long day, and yes, it can be a bit of a dry topic sometimes. Here's hoping for the betterment of its members, measurement will receive a better, earlier timeslot at next year's BMA conference.