It was an interesting trip, to be sure. From no WiFi and no cell phone coverage at a blogging event to meeting people you’ve developed relationships with online and sharing many laughs, everyone had different experiences to share.

There is something here for everyone from strategy and using Facebook to developing face-to-face relationships and sex.

5. The Answer Is a Social Business Strategy. John Bell, from Ogilvy, wasn’t able to attend the conference, but that’s OK because he writes about what he would have contributed to the social business (vs. social media) strategy session. It’s worth the read, if only for the chart he includes to help you think through your strategy.

4. Facebook Is King At BlogWorld. Author Jon Sobel attended quite a few sessions about Facebook and shares what he learned about the social network in a concise wrap-up. He also talks about how the big social networkers aren’t, in fact, sitting in their mom’s basements in front of their computer screens, but very social offline, as well.

3. Day Three Wrap-Up. I’ve always been a big fan of Lisa Barone’s conference wrap-ups and this is no different. This particular post discusses the sessions and events of the last day of BlogWorld. She breaks it down into bullet points and tips you can quickly scan and take to work with you on Tuesday.

2. Relationships at BlogWorld. Today’s #FollowFriday, John Falchetto, offers his views on what it’s like to meet people in person, after you’ve spent years developing relationships online. He says, “In a world where fast is always too slow, I have discovered that sitting down to have tea is often the best marketing strategy ever.”

1. The Hypocrisy of BlogWorld. Marcus Sheridan, aka the Sales Lion, aka Mufasa, writes about the closing night’s keynote and how disappointed he was at the foul language, sexual overtones, and complete hypocrisy of many speakers having to change their titles, but allowing what happened during the keynote. I didn’t stay for the closing night’s events and this left me speechless.

Have a happy holiday weekend…if you’re in the U.S.!

Not my point. My point is that we talked a little bit about what we were hearing coming out of SXSW (not a lot, other than Holler and Google Circles) and it reminded me of something I saw that I think is pretty incredible.

First, enter Len Kendall. Len is a friend IRL and on Facebook and, as he was getting ready to go to Austin, he posted a photo of several moleskins and felt tip pens and I thought, “Huh. He still takes notes.”

What I didn’t know is this: He does more than take notes. He is super, super talented. So talented, in fact, he draws his notes.

Is that not the coolest thing you’ve ever seen?

THEN. I happened to see a link from Ogilvy pass my tweet stream. They, too, were taking visual notes (in fact, they were distributing copies of the notes at attendee’s hotel rooms so they were there when they got up the next morning – waaaaay better than USA Today!).

THEN. You know the red car syndrome? You never see a red car until you buy one and then, suddenly, EVERYONE has a red car? Well, that’s what is happening to me right now with visual note-taking.

Lauren Fernandez posted a link to recipes that are illustrated. Not in a Cooks Illustrated kind of way, but in a very visual, fun kind of way.

I’m reminded of the conversation we had during the live recording of Inside PR at PodCamp in Toronto last month. An audience member asked if we thought podcasting was going to explode, as we once thought it would, or if it’s going to remain where it is.

My thinking on that is that, as human beings, we’re very visual. We either learn visually or by reading (which, I suppose, in a way is visual) so it’s difficult for us to not only find the time, but pay attention, to a podcast. Now these drawings prove that thinking.

Isn’t it way more fun to learn about the sessions this way than to receive someone’s notes?

For more of Len’s (doodles, as he calls them, though what I do is doodle; what he does is so much more) and for more of Ogilvy’s illustrations, check out Posterous and Mashable, respectively.

We talked a lot about both monitoring and measuring social media, but one of the points that kept coming up was “how do I sell this to my executive team, including our general counsel?”

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post about that very topic and you can read it here, but I thought yesterday had some great material to add to the conversation.

* Do an analysis of what your competition is doing and show that to your executive team. It’s pretty amazing what happens when you show the CEO that his/her competition is using social media successfully. Suddenly you no longer have to sell the idea!

* Create not just share of voice or volume share charts, but also share of conversation to show the c-suite that social media is not only driving traffic (eyeballs) but also that it’s contributing to the conversation, in terms of referrals or recommendations. Companies such as Radian6 can help you with this, pretty inexpensively.

* Go to the Arment Dietrich Delicious page, where we’ve bookmarked social media policies for all types of businesses. Download the ones most like your company and share them with your general counsel.

* Demonstrate your knowledge of how social media affects the entire company, including human resources, customer service, marketing, communication, sales, and the executive team. Show case studies on how each department, even if they’re not using social media directly, benefit from the company’s use of it…from a dollars and cents position.

* Provide the executive team with a real analysis of how social media will increase sales. This happens through increased online sales, better and qualified leads, a referral network from your community, and/or sampling.

* Know which buttons make your executives excited and use those to your advantage. Some CEOs are egomaniacs (did I say some? I mean most!) and think seeing their name in lights is going to help increase sales. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. But if you can help create an expert of your chief executive through the social media channels, show him/her how it will benefit the business, as well as stroke their ego.

* Be prepared. Have a plan. Develop a strategy. And don’t forget the benchmarks. It’s OK if your benchmark is zero or if you have to create a new benchmark that has never been there before. Just make sure you have something, with goals for increasing in 30 days, 90 days, six months, and a year.

What other ideas do you have? What has/has not worked for you?