Arianna Huffington is really on a sleep kick. And she's even trying to kick United Airlines about it. Actually, she's trying to get United to kick the habit of having its TV/movie monitors on during the wee hours of long flights when many passengers – including herself – are trying to sleep. In another example of the constantly connected, sleepless society, Huffington invoked a modern day (and real life) version of "Network's" Howard Beale, and told the OMMA Global New York to tell United Airlines that they're not going to take it anymore. Actually, she wants them to tweet …

Bet that woke you up, huh. Citing two explosive trends in society – the increased connectivity of media to stay on top and follow a story, and the corresponding issue of always being on, connected and "hyper-stressed and hyper-connected all the time," Arianna Huffington said the real challenge is to find a way of "recharging" and to "do a better job of un-stressing and un-connecting," and perhaps most importantly, to get more sleep. "We are very committed to sleep at the Huffington Post," she revealed, citing increased coverage of the basic human need, and disclosing that her own, …

How can you and your company stay on top during this time a great change? “Stay true to your DNA,” Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post, told OMMA Global attendees Tuesday morning. At the same time, however, be completely open -- to new technologies and the like -- and be ready to adapt. Stay “on top of the Zeitgeist,” Huffington said. “It’s the way forward,” she said, adding, “It’s an amazing time to be in the business.” What new technology and trends is Huffington experimenting with at the moment? Hyper-local content and e-commerce, to name two examples.

Explaining Huffington Post's approach – and differentiation – to covering the news, Arianna Huffington said the goal has been to avoid being left vs. right in its political coverage, or being narrow-minded in social or economic issues. "It's just the wrong way of looking at things," she said, citing friends of hers who "sleep with a copy of Ayn Rand's 'Fountainhead' under their pillows." Aside from giving them one heck of a stiff neck, Huffington implied that it just gives them a one-sided view of the way society works. As esoteric and cryptic as that may seem, you should …

Maybe it's just her accent or elocution, but it sure sounds like she's calling it Tweeter, which, if you think about it is so much nicer, and given the verb (to) tweet, makes a lot more sense. I mean, after all, who wants to be known as a twit?

That's right, Huffington stormed the stage this morning for her OMMA Global New York opening keynote, and she proved that she does her homework. Well, her tweetwork, anyway. "Thank you for all the great tweeting you are doing, because now I know all about you," the Huffington Post founder noted, citing tweets about children named "Julian and Celeste," and the fact that she knew that someone's "flowers are blooming in your flowerbox." "Max is a great tweeterer," Huffington said, alluding to OMMA conference chair and emcee Max Kalehoff, adding, "because he knows how to mix the professional with …

To begin with, Max noted that Gord Hotchkiss discussed the "big shifts in technology" over the last 150 years, which, "while very disruptive, the key findings was that at the end of every major technology disruption, society is better at the end of each one. And that's probably what's going on here." Nokia had the iPhone several years before Apple, but it's management team scuttled it. "Culture matters and when you're moving fast to keep up with change, culture matters, and purpose matters," Kalehoff noted.

Local ain't niche. On the contrary, from radio to out-of-home, $105 billion is presently spent on local advertising, according to Joan Gillman, President, Time Warner Cable Media Sales, EVP, Time Warner Cable. The topic of choice on Monday afternoon, however, was the Web-reliant world of "hyper-local" advertising. At some point, Gillman hopes to see "a wholesale reallocation" of ad dollars toward hyper-local. Fellow panelist and Forrester analyst Melissa Parrish believes hyper-local will have its day, but wasn't sure enough to offer a time-line. Its time will come in the "not too distant future," she said. Will local eventually …

In the last panel of the day focusing on hyperlocal marketing, Joan Gillman, president, Time Warner Cable Media Sales, pointed out the company is extending geo-targeting from TV to its online properties. One automotive brand is using that capability to target geographic zones where household incomes are $175,000 or more. Sounds like a high-end brand. She also mentioned marketers including financial services companies are using Time Warner's on-demand video offerings to cut back on telemarketing costs by combing local messaging with lead-generation through video pitches. Looking ahead, Gillman added that structural changes are leading people to get local news …

Polled on the street, how many people knew what business Aflac was in? Can you believe just 4 in 100?! And that's after 10 fun-filled years of duck-quacking ads -- or what Jeff Charney, SVP and CMO of Aflac U.S., considers one of the industry's first "disruptive" ad campaigns. Faced with this common marketing conundrum, the insurance company more recently hatched a “You don’t know quack” mutli-channel campaign to educate consumers -- as in, "If all you know about Aflac is (duck shouting "Aflac!"), than you don't know quack." Aflac also asked consumers to explain "what the hell the company …