It's amazing how well these kids understand the agency world.

A little Friday afternoon funny, enjoy!

If you, like me, couldn't attend last week's Word of Mouth Basic Training conference in Orlando, you can still catch up on all the fantastic learnings - for organizations big and small - here. Several highly-efficient bloggers have summarized most of the sessions down to very salient, actionable points.

Do yourself a favor and reserve 30 minutes to read through the posts. I guarantee it'll either give you new ideas for your business and/or brand, or re-energize you to do the things you know you need to do.

I've noticed lately that many marketing and business conferences are immediately available to those who didn't make the trek via blogs and other "attendee marketers" who publish their extensive meeting notes. It's a great way to quickly learn what you may have missed, but it also begs the question - what if people stop attending in the first place?

Some of these conferences could literally start taking place online, and inn the real estate industry one conference already does. But many of the best conferences are worth the networking alone, so taxi lines and expense reports won't dry up quite yet.

So you're a convert, you're a believer.

You know that customer evangelism and word-of-mouth marketing is the most efficient way to reach your target audience right now (forget about five years from now), but the rest of your company is still cold-calling prospects and running magazine ads.

Don't throw away the current marketing plan just yet, but start to build some credibility for your new ideas by establishing subject matter expertise and gaining some quick, measurable wins.

Church of the Customer has a few other great tips today on how to start converting your organization into a group of customer evangelism devotees.

A press release is nothing but a tool. There are, and have always been, MANY other tools to leverage when executing PR campaigns.

Read about several here.

Word-of-mouth marketing is no longer the next thing. It's here now. Many companies - some relatively established, some brand-new - are emerging that focus on this marketing niche.

But it won't be a niche for long. As media continues to decentralize and consumers become 1) more cynical, and 2) less prone to believe traditional marketing, word-of-mouth marketing will become a critical part of your marketing plan.

Read as much as you can now, and think about how this fits into your brand strategy. Because what could be more powerful than your customers doing your marketing for you?

The wickedly smart folks at Church of the Customer offer some advice for choosing a good word-of-mouth agency, which also should help guide how you create a strong, long-term evangelist mobilization strategy for your brands.

If you haven't read The Power of Cult Branding, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy immediately. Control freaks might cringe at the idea that consumers have so much say into the look, feel, even personality of the brand, but smart marketers know this level of consumer empowerment and interaction can be intensely powerful - both in strengthening an existing brand, and even in productively differentiating it from competitors.

Apple is a great example of a successful cult brand. How many companies would inspire fans to creat a contest to design/illustrate movie posters featuring the company's CEO?

The results are very cool. Check out the two examples highlighted by Steve Rubel, especially the Lord of the Rings spoof. Even Bill Gates makes an appearance as Gollum.

Fantastically original. Scroll through the myriad of submissions in the comments section.

Do you remember what you did last weekend?

Your software does.

Read this smart VC's rationale for why self-spyware is a good idea. If used for the right reasons, I agree.

Smart advice from Seth Godin on just how well thought-out ideas need to be, when you're ready to present them.

I believe Seth's right about 80% of the time. Even if you're presenting to an audience who equally understands and appreciates early-stage, conceptual conversations, you can't assume that they'll understand your concept. In your head, and in the way you would quickly present a new concept, you'll naturally be included to move from point A directly to point D.

But when you present, make sure you discuss points B and C. Connecting the dots, and providing context and color, will help your audience understand, appreciate...and approve your prototypes.

Yes, corporate blogs are a good idea. Corporate blogs allow companies and brands to increase the frequency, quality and authenticity of their communication to key constituents (including and beyond customers), and also allow a level of interactivity not available in traditional media.

Many corporate blogs are far too self-promotional, but a few stand out as very well done. TaylorMade, a manufacturer of golf equipment, has introduced two blogs: one that offers an inside look at its products, and another that follows TaylorMade-sponsored golf professionals on the pro curcuit.

Two focused blog efforts, highly attractive to golf enthusiasts. They walk the line well between directly and strongly promoting their products, yet making the content independently interesting.

There is an amazing amount of fantastic and highly-relevant content in the blogosphere.

The often-difficult but lucrative challenge for every news-hungry blog reader is to find fresh nuggets of insight and intelligence not only in that day's blogosphere posts, but in the history of blogs.

Take, for instance, this post from November of 2004 detailing how PR professionals can leverage the "long media tail" to create momentum and coverage for their brands and products.

Still highly relevant today.