• by October 23, 2000

The word for today is "expectations." I'm at the Digitrends Fall Media Buyers Summit in Colorado Springs and maybe it's the rarified air, but the atmosphere at yesterday's welcome reception was that of great anticipation and excitement - that very rarely happens at industry gatherings. At least to this extent.

Everyone I talked to was - and no, I'm not kidding - genuinely excited about learning something new from the 40 some odd senior media buying executives assembled here and roughly twice as many media sellers.

Mainly, attendees agree that the size of the conference is what makes it so unique - everyone has a chance to talk to each other without getting lost in the labyrinth of hundreds of trade show booths.

Most of the excitement is based on previous Digitrends events, so whether the conference stands up to the expectations this time around still remains to be seen.

And believe me, with a price tag of nearly $5,000 for three days you'll be the first to know if it does or not - the air and the scenery does little to soften my inbred skepticism.

On the program today - a super panel on "Building a New Consensus on the Value of an Impression." I doubt the assembly will agree on this particular topic, but it's quite possible some headway will be made - either way you'll get my full report tomorrow.