I’ve just been thinking about my time at the FutureMidwest Conference last week and one word keeps coming to mind:

Awesome.

The venue was great and the the attendees at FutureMidwest managed to make the entire city of Royal Oak crackle with energy. I went right after Joseph Jaffe so I had to big shoes to fill! Anyway, the presentation went great but I’m more excited about the energy that the digital community is bringing to the online space. We are definitely at a turning point when all of the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.

The amazing part is that every strategy discussed at the conference  focuses on creating authentic relationships with customers. And, for the first time all of the tools in the digital toolbox from email to social media are at the spot where they can be integrated in a way that makes business sense. As digital marketers we’ve always intuitively focused on the empowered customer but it’s taken a while for mainstream marketers to come on board. Future Midwest is evidence that at least in Michigan – marketers get it.

Here are a few highlights:

Joe Jaffe continues to evangelize his fascinating point of view on how to change the DNA of your organization to focus on retaining your best customers

Scott Monty showed that even a behemoth like Ford can be agile and turn passion into digital gold

Blagica’s s story about her life and how it supplied the raw material for her blog was probably the most eye opening education on how a successful blog comes together.

All of this in the first few hours.

Great stuff, I can’t wait to see how this discussion evolves over the next year.

If you were at FutureMidwest, go ahead and leave me a comment and let me know what you thought.