It was love at first sight for me and for them.

They just interviewed me about social media, and I’ll be keynoting their private retreat in September.

I say some smart stuff about social media and offer some great advice. Check it out!

As you register, just show your affiliation to CfWBR, and you’ll receive a 15 percent discount. You shouldn’t have any problems but, if anyone asks, just mention my name or this blog.

If you attend, please come back and comment to let me know how it was.

Here they are. Don’t say I never gave you anything (opens in PPT)

I think the results are interesting and telling. I love how the larger a company is, the more it thinks podcasting isn’t useful for its branding. Nope, bigger companies think RSS feeds are all the rage for branding. (Are they serious?)

However, the scrappy small businesses know that online video is where it’s at. For all the small business owners reading this, don’t feel bad–you “get it” more than corporate at this point. Good on ya’!

And of all the respondents, a full 89 percent of companies think their social media adoption is below average or average. Whooty whoot! That means more business for my company!

What are your thoughts about the results?

The moderator is Shon Gables, host of the Black Enterprise Business Report.

The room is packed, and there’s a buzz of networking, forks clanking and laughter.

I’ve been to a NEW event before and, just as sure as these ladies (and some men) are chatting now, they’ll deep dive into the agenda shortly.

At the last NEW event I attended, Lisa Gersh of Oxygen Networks was the keynote, and she bought a high level of approachability and realism to women who work hard every day. She talked about how there really is no such thing as balance and how women should embrace the imbalance.

I agree. People often tell me that they see me everywhere, and they askwhether I ever take a break. Believe you me, I know how to cut the cords and let my hair down.

Anyway, we’re about to get started . . . I’ll be back.

We all had a great time, and what was most important to me, I think, was that all the attendees finally realized that they’re not “losers” for not being fully engaged with social media. There are multibillion-dollar brands that can’t yet use social media effectively, so no one should feel bad.

Social media has such a “keep up with the Joneses” element to it that companies with perfectly good marketing strategies and strong brands sometimes feel like they’re doing a horrible job.

Take that energy and put it into getting started. If you don’t have the resources or interest (or are just too leery) to launch your own social media initiative, use what I call O.P.S. (Other People’s Social) to dip your toe in the water . . . comment on other blogs and connect with people through offering advice and guidance in online communities. Never forget that you have to give to get.

And if you don’t want to be that active, just listen. Set up a Google Alert for your name, the name of your company, products, services and other phrases or unique words associated with your brand. You might even set up a Google Alert for the name of your industry–commercial construction, for example–to find out what’s being said about your industry overall.

The point is to start.

P.S. I’m still trying to get my hands on the social media resistance survey results from the Executing Social Media conference. When they’re uploaded, I’ll link to them. Thanks for your patience.

No seriously, we are talking about what we all got out of the day; and Chris Heuer made the good point that 10 years later, we’re seeing the predictions in Cluetrain Manifesto come to life.

Heuer also shared a particularly poignant Shel Israel quote, “People usually overestimate the ability to create change in the short term and underestimate their ability to create change in the long term.” Amen to that.

George Wright from Blendtec just said, “Either you’re going to be a big boy and hike your skirt up and do something or you’re not.” Amen to that, too.

And I added to that: “As of now, everyone in this room has the potential to be a leader, and what you do with all this information that you get from this conference is going to separate the true leaders from people who can’t step up and effect change. And as of right now, you can’t say you don’t know about social media. Ignorance is no longer an excuse.”

We also spent a good deal of time talking about risk aversion and managing the legal department and its objections. To which, Jake McKee says, “Legal doesn’t own and operate your company. You do.” You tell ‘em, Jake.

I also like the fact that there are some fresh faces speaking at this conference. There are some of the “usual suspects,” but there are also many new people leading roundtables and, as usual, many of the “usual suspects” are trying to take over the conversation from the new leaders. Ahhh, men in social media

Once the social media resistance survey results are released, I’ll let you know. Apparently, there is much interest about the results. I’ve been speaking and live blogging so I haven’t had much time to really look at the results, but when I post them, I’ll be sure to give you my two cents’ worth.

Oh, and did I mention that Jake McKee of Ant’s Eye View is here? The funny thing is, I didn’t know who he was until I went to his website. Then I put two and two together. Jake is a cool guy with a lot of insights about social media. (Isn’t it funny how I know people based on their websites and e-mail addresses? That says a lot about how times have changed.)

Oh, and if you want to check out photos from the conference, visit Flickr.

Today we had an awesome keynote from George Wright of Blendtec. You know . . . the brains behind willitblend? He actually blended a garden rake–live in front of us! It was the coolest thing!

But seriously, we are working here. I spoke with one attendee about social media for the Harley Davidson brand; we talked about the benefit in calculating your NetPromoter Score; we heard from Brian Solis, author of Now is Gone (well, I didn’t hear him because I had my own session to lead); and I also led a roundtable about getting social media projects approved by upper management and legal.

We also got a first look at the results of the social media resistance survey, and I’ll be sharing that information later. I can tell you that the results show that larger companies find online video and podcasts particularly helpful. What does that mean to you? If your market consists of large companies, you might want to consider launching a podcast or videocast.

More later. . .

Oh, and P.S. I got to have dinner with my WomanEntrepreneur.com editor, Eve, last night. She’s even cooler in person.

I read on Peter Shankman’s Twitter feed that he’s arrived here, as well. If you don’t know who Peter Shankman is, find out by subscribing to his Help A Reporter Out (HARO) service. It’s real, legitimate, free leads for media coverage. My company has received some great coverage by responding to some of the queries that come through his mailing list–and no, it’s not just tech stuff.

I took a nice walk around Old Town Pasadena today and I really like it. I can live here, but lately I’ve been saying that a lot about everyplace but New York. Hmmm . . . maybe there’s a small change brewing?

Pasadena is great, relaxed and the peeps are really friendly. You can wear flip-flops in just about every fancy restaurant. I collect art and I try to pick up pieces from my travels, so I asked a few local Pasadenans what Pasadena is famous for and they all said the Rose Parade. Soooooo . . . since I missed that, I’ll take a few pictures of the gorgeous architecture and leave it at that. Maybe I’ll have a fewshots framed.

Anyway . . . the conference starts tomorrow. I’ll try to do some live blogging, but I have a session to lead and a roundtable to orchestrate, so I’ll do what I can to keep you informed of what’s going on here.

Stay tuned…

If you’ve ever wanted to write a book, publish a book you’ve already written, write a blog or use a blog to market your book, then this is the conference for you.

To weigh in on exactly what you want to see, whom you want to speak and when you think the conference should be held, take two minutes and let them know.

Question: How many other conferences ask the participants before they schedule one single session?

Answer: Not many.

So, hop to it.