• "Want to lose one million more jobs?  Just keep talking."

The ad is by the U.S. Travel Association and promotes the website Meetings Mean Business.

This ad really resonates with me.  Business is best achieved by in-person conversations, not email, not web meetings, and definitely not Second Life.  I preach this at our company often as our CEO.  In the age of BlackBerrys, iPhones, and Android, you have to struggle to remember that relationships are fostered in-person.  Most communication should occur that way, especially within a company.  Email is best for mass-distribution messages or very quick yes/no responses.  I would use IM over email any day of the week for a real-time conversation.  Even Facebook messenger is better than email, for the simple reason of having my face and the recipient's face IN the message, making it more personal.  The problem with many executive teams and CEOs is a lack of humility, and it is simply harder to be a jerk in person.  Email masks many cultural problems.

I remember watching Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, on CNBC while he was at the World Economic Forum in Davos.  I remember him ranting about his fellow CEOs of financial services companies not being there.  Being "in the bunker" instead.  Not doing their part to get their companies back on track, with the impact their CEOs could have at such an important event.  I couldn't agree with him more.  Don't be in the bunker. Business gets done in person. As Andy Grove wrote in one of my favorites, High-Output Management, meetings are the medium of management.

I understand how tough the economy is, but those that didn't show at Shop.org's Strategy & Innovation Forum, where attendance was way down as compared to last year's event, really missed out.  We had our best content ever (I serve on the Board of Directors and was very proud of how educational the content was this year).  At least you can read the blog entries.

I hope to see you at our Summit this April in Austin.  It is our single best training event of the year.  You will make far more impact in your company as a result of attending it, and the little money you spend on travel to attend will be an afterthought as a result.  Executives last year told me that it was the most actionable conference they attended all year.

And here's Jamie Dimon on the economy.  I think he's the real deal, and I'm listening to his interviews carefully:

Click here to view the embedded video.

While all of the findings are of interest (mobile, widgets, personalization, etc.), this year I was most struck by three big trends:

•  The global traffic share gains of YouTube, Facebook, Hi5, Wikipedia, and Orkut – all making the global top-10 for the first time.  I remember when Time selected "You" as the "Person of the Year" for their Dec. 2006 cover.  They may have called it too early.  Social connection online has truly arrived.  The growth of these sites are staggering, highlighting the power of community, user-generated content, and word of mouth online.
• The share gain of Amazon.com relative to large, multichannel retailers.  They led the way with customer reviews over 10 years ago, and have become a Wikipedia of sorts for broad, product-focused reviews.  And they continue to innovate at a staggering pace, spending over $3 billion per year on R&D.
• The uncharted territory we are in with the recession, truly making this our most important presidential election in history.  Although Bazaarvoice is growing at a very fast pace, beating our financial projections repeatedly, we are also cautious and watching the economy closely.  And I know that most, if not all, of our clients and partners are doing the same.

In case you missed the link above, you can read the full report here.

And if you have some more time this weekend, you may also want to check out Steve Jobs' recent keynote on the iPhone 2.  While I carry a BlackBerry myself (my wife carries an iPhone), the power of the iPhone's new programming language (and SDK) to deploy corporate applications as well as the new AppStore (reminds me of Salesforce.com's AppExchange) signal a new type of Apple.  With these moves, they are embracing being an "open" platform and focusing on B2B at the same time.  This should lead to an accelerated adoption of Macs in corporations, as the iPhone uses the same OS and user behavior historically shuns change (or seeks familiarity; heck this is human behavior not just 'user' behavior).  In any case, his keynote may lead you to believe that the iPhone 2 will be the dominant mobile computing platform for corporations in our near-term future.

Steve Jobs set the blogs ablaze in January by announcing the iPhone and continued causing a word of mouth stir all the way through the interview with the Wall Street Journal. Looking back to my post in January, from day one the iPhone was a hit. The expectations were overwhelming and the dissenters numerous, but Apple adhered to one key rule in marketing – live up to the hype. Apple called their shot and told consumers EXACTLY what to expect, with demos and details metered out carefully, then simply released exactly that. Creating the buzz is easy, but nailing it on launch day is where some products have missed the mark. Not the iPhone.

The experience of getting one was great. The Apple store I went to in the Domain here in Austin had over 1000 in stock the first day, according to rumors in the line. Apple wouldn’t say exactly. The line was visited by Apple employees handing out free Starbucks' certificates and water. They told everyone that you could buy two at a time and they had more than enough in stock. This easily prevented the mayhem seen with the PS3 launch AND boosted the image of Apple to the crowd. People around me were talking about how great Apple was for two hours. Can’t get better than that. Also, they had about 30 employees in the store, they were processing the sale of the iPhone quickly and efficiently, then you bought your accessories in a separate purchase. All with handheld checkout devices to keep things moving and avoid lines. It worked perfectly.

Activating it worked through iTunes, making the purchase process faster and the activation process easy. This is certainly the new model for activating mobile hardware. I did it all from my house and had to call into their hotline only when my current plan didn’t allow for adding a second line on the same bill. Once that was fixed, I was talking on my iPhone in minutes.

The iPhone itself is exactly what you’ve seen on TV, blogs, Apple.com, and everywhere else for the past six months. The interface is fast and slick. The multi-touch input mechanism works really well. You won’t set speed records for text entry but it works – and for anyone but the fastest of BlackBerry typists it will be fine. The audio quality is great and notably better to the people I’ve spoken to on it so far. Text messages look great (resembles iChat). Videos look fantastic and the touch-screen iPod is fantastic. As others are already saying, this will change the way MP3 players and phones are designed. And everything is exactly as Steve Jobs said it would be back in his keynote in January.

If you want one, go get one, you won’t be disappointed. Last time I checked their website, stock levels were good. And enjoy being a part of the best product launch in a long time.