Darren Huston, Corporate Vice President, Consumer & Online, Microsoft Corp., on "Harnessing New Digital Tools to Fuel Your Marketing Plans" Bing was a brand we created. Ask two people on streets in NY what is Bing, one will know what it is and that Microsoft birthed it. Windows Vista, huge perception issues ... Now Windows 7 is a rebirth of our OS and so far is good. We've gone in five years from

Ken Sunshine, longtime publicist who has worked for former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, Barbra Streisand and the Jackson family then took the stage to interview none other than the Reverend Al Sharpton on marketing and trust. Sunshine introduced Sharpton with a lengthy speech that included an anecdote illustrating the fact that both Sunshine and Sharpton are insomniacs. "I called him at seven in the morning - 4am in Las Vegas (where he was) to ask him what it was about Serena and Kanye. 'Are black people going crazy?' The Rev response was 'I could say the same …

Tom Daly, group manager, global interactive, Coca-Cola, on receiving his award as an Online All-Star: "Someone said I was a 'net giver.' I have a confession. I'm a 'net taker.' I take their energy, passion, creativity, I take and I take and I take and I use the perch that I've been given, the Coca-Cola brand. I was fortunate to understand interactive marketing at UPS, in 1995 the emergence of electronic commerce,... the chances I've been given I just want to say thank you."

It wouldn't be a media conference without technical difficulties. Just ask Sarah Fay, former OMMA All-Star and former CEO at Carat, who's video presentation just failed to launch. Fay's one of our favorite executives, and this isn't a jab, but she seems a bit out of practice as she stumbles through her opening remarks. In May, Fay left her position as head of Aegis Media North America just a year after taking over for David Verklin. She is presently on sabbatical.

No place for settling in to ways of doing things. Our own companies are client companies. We are all drinking from the fire hose. Stay current, stay open minded to new solutions. Favorite New Yorker cartoon, guy looking at his calendar, saying, "No, Thursday's out. How about never. Is never good for you?" Be constantly on the prowl for ways to innovate because otherwise the world will move past you. The brands that win will be those whose customers tell each other the best stories. No one can claim to be the ultimate expert in social marketing …

Blake Mycoskie, founder, CEO and "chief shoe giver" of Tom's Shoes, owns a small company that got very big buzz when AT&T tapped them to star in one of their campaigns for wireless service. He might be the perfect exponent of the socially responsible company, or in Mycoskie's words, one whose "DNA is social responsiblity." At the Advertising Week Trust Forum, Mycoskie, in sockless shoes, jeans and a t-shirt was seated between Meredith Verdone, SVP Bank of America, and Steve Pacheco, Fedex's managing director of advertising. He looked as if he'd just come in from Rangoon on a pontoon boat, …

Jason Yim, President and Executive Creative Director, Trigger LLC, talking about the company's efforts for National Mandela Day: "We had the man, a great message and a great mission. The barrier to entry was pretty low. Mobile was an important facet. But, again, start with idea, good content. Without that, I don’t know how successful any mobile app will be." Next stop for the effort is Madrid. "In the U.S., we are so far behind. We use mobile passively," he says. "With proximity marketing, we should expect more dynamic use of mobile. In many ways [in the campaign], mobile …

Looking around the ballroom earlier, I was surprised to see so many people apparently bored and napping. Then I realized all of them were actually looking at their smartphones. Probably tweeting about the session!

For any ad execs who long for the days before the Web made it possible for consumers to create and distribute media themselves, Initiative’s Bant Breen offered some consolation. Speaking at a panel about whether Madison Avenue still has a future, Breen told the audience that beyond all of the user-generated content is “a ton of data” that can be mined. PHD’s Scott Hagedorn agreed, chiming in that all of the data that used to come from research panels is “now out there for free.” Of course, this consumer data -- or some of it, anyway -- might not …

Also onstage at the Trust Forum was a microscope. Really. Babcock had brought that up to demonstrate the idea of a "trust lens", to demonstrate -- I have to confess here that I'm not entirely sure what a trust lens is. But I think I forgot to mention in the earlier post why it was she also had a hula hoop onstage. That's another interesting story, but the upshot is that it is sort of a metaphor for a trust lens. I want one. And if I'd been sitting in the right seat I would have gotten one, too, because …