Marketing types and Internet aficionados alike flocked to the Atlantic Internet Marketing Conference in Halifax last week where more than 20 speaker addressed 35 different workshop and keynote topics from Internet Marketing 101 to Innovate or Die: Brand Building in 2010 to Marketing in a Hyper Social World.

Several members of our team attended AIM sessions and had this to say:

Erin Lynch, Account Manager:

I attended the AIM conference his past Thursday and Friday with a mixture of interest and dread. As someone whose username on twitter is @ludditelynch, I am usually quite reticent to adopt the latest technology or expand my horizons beyond what’s worked for me in the past. As such, I figured I would be pushed beyond my comfort zone, confused and mystified by the presentations. Miraculously, this was not my experience at all. Apart from being the only person in the sessions without a smartphone, I found myself surprisingly up-to-date on the strategies and technologies associated with digital marketing and social media. Truthfully, in the first two sessions I attended, I learned very little and actually aided the presenter in remembering a name for a particular technology.

Far from being disappointed by the fact that I didn’t learn a whole lot at the sessions, I am very pleased with the realization that simply by virtue of working with such a great team at trampoline, I know more than I thought I knew about this stuff. Seemingly by osmosis, I have broadened my horizons. And while I’ll probably never be the one on the very cutting edge of the latest gadget or technology, I definitely feel ahead of the curve. Therefore, as I tweeted on Friday from my sad little slide keyboard phone, the biggest thing I took away from the AIM conference was that we’re doing an excellent job of parlaying the latest social media and digital trends into the strategic mix for our clients’ businesses.

Dorian Burns-Coyne, Account/Office Administrator:

I sat in on the How Newspapers are Helping Local Business Win Online session. Put on by North American communications leader Transcontinental, I expected a flashy presentation with a lot of impressive numbers, and it was just that. The information reinstated what is starting to become common knowledge, and that is Canadians love the Internet. Year after year, the number of Internet users, the amount of time spent online, and our reliance on the Internet increases. Much like the Internet, Canada is vast and diverse, and Transcontinental has recognized this by creating websites such as WebLocal.ca. With websites like this, users can share what they read in the newspapers, by posting useful information within their local online communities. This provides consumers with an online hub of information, which is relevant to the businesses within their community, complete with peer-ratings, thus promoting the prominent local businesses that may not break the top five search results, but are five minutes down the road.

Nadine LaRoche, Account Manager:

To be frank, I didn’t come back from my two days at the AIM conference with much in the line of fresh ideas. But I don’t think the conference was particularly aimed at folks like us, either (the kinds of folks, for instance, whose president wouldn’t hear of us attending last Thursday and Friday’s talks without having trampoline’s Twitter account lined up on our phones and the conference’s hashtag in hand).

While some of the more advanced talks did dive a little deeper than the entry-level ins and outs of online marketing and social media, most of what I attended served as a refresher, a reminder that that advice and instincts we’ve been dishing out and relying on over here at trampoline are on mark and up-to-date. The conference also allowed me the opportunity to share a room with many of our clients, and a quick peek over at their nodding heads and engaged expressions flooded me with that same relief and satisfaction.

Of the sessions I took in, it was one with Eric Karjaluoto of SMASHLab that brought me back to the office talking. Eric opened the second day of the conference with a fast-paced talk on how companies might better connect with their customers, notably, the need to “speak human.” Anecdote after anecdote uncovered that it’s the companies you’d recommend to your mother, the ones that help you, not handle you, and the ones with a clear and passionate purpose that we can’t help but buy from, work with or throw our vote. It’s these businesses that “speak human”—the problem solvers, not the problem staters—that keep customers, and when they make mistakes, they just try harder. “Companies that speak human care as much about who is buying now,” said Eric, “as who is buying in the future.” Now that, that’s a fresh idea worth holding onto.

Collaboration is a huge part of what we do. And creative minds don't always think alike. But that's what keeps things interesting around here. This post was written in cooperation by members of the Trampoline Branding staff.