Having experienced 3 ½ days of mind-blowing content, note-taking, networking and yes, a bit of stargazing, I wanted to share some themes that emerged for me. Many are things we all know, and some are simply good reminders of things to think about, since the routine course of business can easily cloud our perspective.

Here are my 10 takeaways (in no particular order):

1. Passion is contagious. There’s nothing more invigorating than talking with or listening to someone who absolutely loves what they do. Consider Cheryl Hayashi, a spider silk scientist. You got that right…she specializes in spider silk, not just spiders (as if that isn’t specialized enough!). And for 18 minutes, she oozed passion about how silk is created, how different spiders create different types of silk with varying measures of tensile strength. She convinced us why we should care, why she cares so deeply and why we should really think twice before mindlessly batting away a web that crosses our path as it has been so artfully created. 

2. Be the CEO of something. It would be easy to assume that TED speakers are CEOs of companies. In fact, that’s rarely the case. Rather, they are CEOs of their ideas, of grand visions, and, most important, of themselves. One memorable TED presenter was a 28-year-old who lived out of his van in Maui, but he was armed with a compelling, groundbreaking challenge to string theory. Raghava KK, a once nameless teen artist from India, discovered his cartoon drawings could evoke emotion and political controversy around the world. And while many may have written off Temple Grandin at an early age, she embraced her autism and the unique strengths it provided her to become revered as an expert in animal behavior and a voice for the global autistic community. Perhaps their successes sound unlikely to us, but no doubt they believed in their own abilities and ideas all along, and their leadership started with themselves.

3. Persistence pays. While I was having lunch one day, Marc Koska rolled up on a skateboard and asked if he could join me in the adjacent empty chair. He was a casual middle-aged guy with long, tussled hair. As we spoke, I learned that he had invented a particular type of syringe that would prevent hepatitis and HIV from being spread via dirty needles. He invented it when he was 23—with no college education. He spent the next 17 years tweaking the product and convincing the government and other pharma companies to buy it from him—17 years before he got his first sale! Now, he is credited for saving more than 10 million lives. 10 million!!!

4. Fail forward. I had the chance to sit next to David Byrne during one of the sessions. He was a nervous wreck about his upcoming talk. He said he knew how to sing. He could sing with his eyes closed, in his sleep. But talking to this intelligent crowd intimidated him. When it was time for him to walk onto the stage, the audience cheered – it was David Byrne! But, the next 18 minutes were painful for everyone in the room. He bombed. But, he also stretched…in new ways, he allowed himself to be vulnerable, to get uncomfortable – and as a result, he later he confided this experience helped him to discover both an appreciation for the other presenters and a new path for personal growth. And, then there’s Mark Roth, a biochemist and cell biologist who told of his decade-long series of failed attempts and partial successes doing experiments with “suspended animation.” How can someone fail so many times and continue to keep looking for a solution? He’s simply convinced that one day his work will help critically ill trauma patients get the organs they need in time to save their lives. Mark would say it’s important to fail fast, and then keep on going, because time is the most precious currency we have.

4. Things are rarely as they seem. They are neither black or white or completely wrong or right. Maybe it’s the designer in me, but I’ve always subscribed to that theory. It was refreshing to listen to Sam Harris, a neuroscientist and philosopher challenging the audience to think about how we need to come together to define human values that can be shared in all cultures. And then there was a young provocateur who argued that choosing to be a vegetarian or carnivore was too extreme–why do we have to choose? Why not create a new option – “Weekday Veg” – where fruits and veggies are consumed throughout the week and meat options reserved for the weekend. William Li, a cancer researcher, on the cusp of major breakthroughs told the audience, “Discovery is seeing what everyone else has seen but thinking what no one has thought.” These presenters reminded me that there is always another perspective, another way, and many shades of gray.

5. Dare to be bold. By now, you’ve watched Kramer’s video about our commitment to Jamie Oliver’s bold quest to change the food habits of Americans. One might wonder how a young Brit could dare to be so bold in confronting American moms, school administrators, fast food companies, government official among others. Armed with facts, passion and a vision for a better way, Jamie is determined to change our grocery lists, our school lunches, our fast food options, and our relationship with food. His bold vision enraptured the audience, causing everyone including the likes of Google execs and documentarian Morgan Spurlock to lean forward and offer support. We are thrilled to be part of enabling Jamie’s bold dream. Dare you join us? ; )

6. Have a sense of urgency. Kevin Bales can’t sleep. And now that I know that the world has 27 million slaves TODAY, I can’t either. Bales wakes up everyday knowing that time is ticking. What can he do to end this? Not to curtail it but to END it? He’s busy getting the word out, giving speeches, writing books, negotiating with governments, petitioning the UN and other groups that will get involved and take action. Even though our daily agenda isn’t nearly as ambitious as this, it makes me reconsider how I spend time – do the big things get enough time? Do the little things get less time? Probably not often enough. So, here’s my plan – half the meetings, half the time. Maybe this simple gesture will free up more energy for ideas that can impact our clients, our future, and our range of philanthropic efforts. How can you have more urgency for things that matter?

7. Gamers just may change the world. It’s easy to write-off gaming as a consummate time suck – especially knowing that gaming consumes more than 3 BILLION hours each week. Yep, 3 billion. Jane McGonigal argues that we need to be playing MORE games – as much as 21 billion hours per week? Why? She believes that gamers are most equipped to change the world: 1.) they have an urgent sense of optimism; 2.) they have a strong sense of the social fabric; 3.) they are blissfully productive; 4.) they seek epic wins and meaning. Imagine all the gamers in the world helping to figure out how to cool the planet or solve world hunger. Forget work…let’s play!

8. Power of simplicity. It’s easy to make relatively simple things complex. It’s extraordinarily difficult to make the complex simple. Bill Gates showed us how to do just that. He had a total of 18 minutes to frame the implications of global warming and proposed a logical formula for solving the problem. He identified 5 key carbon dioxide-reducing ideas and new energy solutions we need to invest in to “innovate to zero.” He helped us to understand that we have 20 years to test and learn and 20 years to implement the solution in order to save the planet. Simple as that….and everyone was ready to jump onboard. All that brilliance was shared in the amount of time it takes to eat a packed lunch.

9. Execution matters. TED is most known for its provocative content. But perhaps the thing that really makes TED the best conference around is the execution of ….well, everything. With TED, details are essential. From the seamless, speedy registration process to its stunning visual materials to the set décor, to the design-forward meeting spaces throughout the venue, to the healthy food and extraordinary coffee to the breathtaking entertainment to the swag bag – it’s a totally, well-conceived, orchestrated experience. Without the brilliant execution, it might just become an alternative to academia. TED has reminded me that great ideas matter most when they’re executed (with excellence). (Thanks, Bob Baxley for the reminder.)

10. Compassion as a compass. I never saw the direct connection between these two words before – now I do. The spark was initiated for me by a grassroots effort at www.charterforcompassion.org. Then, Sheryl Crow brought this sentiment to life by reminding us all to “get out of our heads and into our hearts.”  Natalie Merchant, spent the last 6 years pouring through the works of deceased poets and resurrected their musings in her latest album. She shared a few of these new songs and her sincerity and heartfelt compassion enthralled the audience in a quiet, serene sort of way. Then, unexpectedly, she changed the tempo, closing the session with her infamous and apropos rendition of Thank you - a lovely, spirited reminder that those two little words simply aren’t spoken often enough.

When we at Resource talk about brands being more open to consumer conversations, feedback, opinions and more, we typically refer to things like ratings and reviews, Tweets and general customer feedback mechanisms.

AT&T has taken the idea of listening to customers so seriously that it created an iPhone app so that users can quickly and easily report their problems and get an acknowledgment that the issue was successfully submitted. And the easier it is for consumers to get the right info to AT&T, the easier it is for the company to fix it.

I commend this novel approach to giving users an On-Demand way to communicate with the brand. Right on.

Real-time Search
Results from sources such as newly published/updated blogs, twitter, myspace and facebook updates are integrated live into the search results page. There is even a pause button if the action gets to fast and furious. To be fair, Microsoft's Bing integrated real-time results first, but in a limited fashion and not inline with other traditional results. To try it out, go to the Google Trends page and click on Tiger Woods (or any other trend.)

Pardon Our (Chalk) Dust While We Track Key Trends

I created this Trend Tracker for our Emerging Media & Futuring offers and it awaits a hyperlinked interface and a perhaps some Glue protocol so everyone can comment as a group and bring the (real-time) stream. For now, our mock chalkboard communicates the essentials, not only the relationships between various trends and their respective macrotrends but the fact that some have morphed a bit since I drafted this several months ago, and some might meet the eraser.

You can raise your hand and request to learn more about a trend; just comment on this post. "Unconsumption" will definitely be on the test, as I'm covering it over the next few months in preparation for SXSW.

Clearly the folks at this outdoor outfitter know how to make merriment out of madness. Tonight I received an apology email from the company's CEO explaining that there was a problem earlier in the day, that it is now fixed, and that the site-crashing promotion will be good whether you type in the promo code or not.

While I hadn't actually shopped at Moosejaw today, this email drove me there. And the site was down. Thirty minutes later, it was back up. Then down for a minute. Then up. Hopefully it stays that way.

What I find more impressive than Moosejaw's popular "2X rewards" promotion (which grew to 5x!) though, is the fact that during what could be a major retail crisis, the brand used email, Facebook and Twitter to keep its fans informed about what was going on and make sure they got their deal. Consumer Tweets and Facebook comments are, for the most part, glowing, with only one or two expressing frustration. In fact, one of the evening's Tweets read, "moosejaw.com has the best customer service hands down."

Hopefully the company finds it was a financially profitable day, but regardless, it looks like the brand's reputation is still worth its weight in backpacks, snowshoes and insulated clothing.

I fully expected an O’Reilly conference to be aglow with gadgetry but many if not most of those netbooks, lapbooks and smart phones attached to the industrious in the dark were, well, tweeting, posting blogs and filing stories, having anticipated—from previous summits—that there would be several industry-shaping announcements. Mashable was to my left and Forbes to my right. I watched the pull quotes being pulled. It was all very His Girl Friday viewed on Fast Forward.

The “above the fold” story was indisputably about the evolution of search. (To pull the focus for me, if you will, was the unexpected visit Google co-founder Sergey Brin paid us. He did indeed saunter onto the stage in strange, much publicized footwear (the soles have, well, toes)—testing even the unflappable host John Battelle and explaining that he hadn’t said NO to the summit invitation, after all.) So voluminous has the coverage been on Google’s new Social Search that we’ll skip that for now and go straight to the Bing/Twitter partnership—in other words, real-time search.

You can search tweets on Bing now, and watch the results of the world's “first decision engine” as they roll in, or simply glance at what’s trending in the tag cloud. First, Bing gives you Shared Links about, say, “Black Friday.” If you want more, click on the “See more from Twitter about Black Friday" link. You can really scuba dive on this page and not have to worry about swimming around the spam—Bing (still in beta) is attempting to despamify its results and to eliminate the retweets so there is diversity in the results. Influential tweeters will rank higher in this new search world order, as will tweets that have been retweeted, and tweets that are hot off the press: recency matters down to the nanosecond here.

There are many more Bingy things to appreciate. The semantic web moves a little closer to the main stage with Bing's access to Wolfram|Alpha’s advanced algorithms and expertly curated data. And Bing's visual search will be its own draw; it has slick vertical sliders, so if you're checking out top nonfiction books, you can see them whirl by in the order of sales rank. Somehow seeing all the Pulitzer Prize-winning books displayed this way motivates me to read more of them. Visual memory presented as tidy shelves has a longer shelf life than does text-based information, it would seem.

Bing made some market gains totaling 9.9 percent share in October, placing it third in the search engine space. It might indeed take Microsoft money to steal meaningful share from Google--what an ad campaign Bing has waged!, but without innovation, it would have been just so much banner bling.

So…I’m sitting on my couch on a Saturday evening. College football is on TV (typical). Laptop is on my lap (typical) and my iPhone is by my side (typical). But, on top of the iPhone sits a new Motorola Droid. I picked it up at the end of last week and, as much as I love my iPhone, I’m really liking the Droid as well. It isn’t an iPhone killer, but it is a very good device…better coverage, amazing screen, great integration of Google apps, etc. Its success (and the success of other devices like it) is extremely important to the adoption and advancement of mobile technology.

While Motorola and Verizon didn’t release sales figures around the Droid launch, an independent party that monitors new handset activations estimates that 250,000 units were sold in the first week of availability.  Not too shabby for a U.S. only release on one carrier. The big test will be keeping the sales up. The Palm Pre had a decent launch, but unfortunately, unit sales fell off quickly. Now no one wants it and subsequently no one wants to develop for it. That’s a shame because it was a pretty nice device.

As someone who is involved in the creation of mobile experiences for our clients, I long for the day when the iPhone isn’t the only “great user experience” game in town. Competition is good for the consumer, eventually forcing the availability of outstanding mobile device choices no matter which carrier you prefer. But, more importantly (to me at least), it is my hope that the Phone Wars lead us to a standardized method for creating robust user experiences for our clients and ultimately the consumer. Most brands will never be able to financially afford to fully embrace mobile if they have to develop a unique application (in a unique development environment) for every device.

Who will be mobile’s Obi Wan Kenobi? HTML 5? Adobe Flash Player 10.1? Something else? Will apps live on or will we revert to enhanced browser based experiences? The true power of location based technologies, augmented reality and image recognition will never be realized if we have to use an “app for that.”

Maybe these are the Droid’s we’re looking for.

Social search, real-time search, visual search: each is a powerful new method for plumbing our petabytes of indexed wit and wisdom, and discovering all those worldly, clickable, configurable, customizable, Polyvore-collaged, socnet button-shared, rated-and-reviewed goods. The stakes are higher for marketers tasked with making sure their products and services are part of the search results that consumers now control.

Semantic search, probably the least understood, means consumers will eventually (once we link all that data, as Sir Tim-Berners Lee likes to say) have to do less trawling to satisfactorily complete their search. Searching is short circuited in favor of finding. Results are, literally, more meaningful.

To complete my reporting on the prestigious O'Reilly Web 2.0 Summit, I'd add to the lengthening list of search innovations instant search, which I discovered in the Microsoft (BizSpark Program) Lounge. Positioned more as an "augmented learning" tool, it also seems to me a great way to dial up the On-Demand and Engaging aspects of your open branding.

Here's my finger pointing to the word "piracy" in the demo, which prompted a pop-up box chock-a-block with intel on the bad boys who used to fly the skull and crossbones and who've made a frightening comeback of late.

First, the company's official description from their news release, and then my slant on the product's commercial potential through the creation of subtext.

"Loqu8 is a leader in augmented learning software with over 13,000 users in 22 countries. This user-guided, on-demand learning model is the result of years of research at Stanford University in cognitive science and information processing. The company's innovative iNtuition™ information management engine uses ultra-fast LiveScan technologies to display information in a pop-up window—all in a fraction of a second."

“Apple popularized graphical user interfaces in 1984,” described Dr. Tim Uy, President and CEO of Loqu8. “Today Loqu8 Prelude is making traditional command line search obsolete. No more typing or copy-and-paste keystroke maneuvers. By harnessing the power of Microsoft Bing™, Microsoft’s new decision engine, plus Wikipedia, and other key Microsoft platform technologies including Windows 7, Visual Studio 2008 and Windows Server 2008, Prelude delivers information instantly, in context and at the right time.”

Now for the subtext idea. I'm using the term loosely to describe what lies beneath the copy in the window in your web browser or desktop application. It's a form of information layering (LAYERING being one of the chief behaviors of Web 3.0--according to the RI:Lab) that has the potential to create exciting tension between what's explicitly stated on your page and what remains available only to those taking the time to hover or point. Tension plays a crucial role in Burger King's advertising, in Resource's own Insight Formula for rapid prototyping, and is the reason for having a subtext in the first place. Stephen Colbert is always saying one thing in his mock-patriotic rants but his charts say something else, don't they?

The more obvious and utilitarian value in layering your content (through a more controlled, limited semantic search of the web and your own content database) is this: those subterranean notes and links you provide on your product or services or the sociocultural issues relevant to your brand) mix with Wikipedia's third-party authority and, voila, you've made your page more Engaging and On-Demand. Let's say I'm checking out your brand's latest anti-aging cream and hover over a new product: up pops a scientific paper on peptides (ok, I'd read it but it might not be everyone's deal-maker) or the nation's leading cosmetic surgeon on video describing the ultimate beauty regimen for women who believe that 40 is the new 30.

You say we're awash in content already and who needs more?

This is what the naysayers said about blogging.

You say the popup is old news? Yes, but look what it's done for e-retailing.

I'm inclined to believe that a link away doesn't fire our neurons the way a layered page does. If only I had a pop-up box with the latest Stanford cognitive science research to validate that hunch...

Etsy artists sure know a thing about service.

Here's one extra great Etsy find--and not just the creative, eco-friendly prints. This particular artist has taken a fresh take on "Gone Fishing". Recognizing and supporting consumers' expectation for on-demand experiences, she posted a large note right on the front of her store announcing the fact that she's on vacation until November 5, so any orders placed now wouldn't be shipped until November 7. Vacation in the digital world? Personally, I'm a fan....I think we could all use a little more time off than we take. This artist didn't just ignore incoming orders or quietly delay shipping, she exceeded expectations by being transparent and by discounting any order placed during her vacation by10%--including shipping.

I love that the artist powering that digital storefront feels real, accesible-even if she's on vacation for a few days.

I'll be analyzing the trend of unconsumption in the months to come, both its improbable role in spurring spending now that the recession is officially behind us--yes, brands do indeed have a role here, and the digital channel's unique and outsized contribution to it.