My colleague David Jones is in Vancouver this week on behalf of his client Molson. He also made time to speak at the traditionally any-day-but-Tuesday Third Tuesday social media gathering (lovingly organized by Tanya, the Netchick herself, and Monica).

Gathering from what I've been reading from some of the bloggers in attendance - thanks in particular to Rebecca and Tris for their insightful summaries - he appears to have given a good showing, and articulated a number of important points with respect to how H&K approaches the social media space on behalf of our clients such as Motorola, Intel, Molson, Overlay.tv and others, including:

• the importance of continuous learning within H&K itself,
• the challenge of communicating in an environment where every employee is now a potential communicator, whether they know it or not,
• the fact that social media is rarely, if ever, a "quick fix" or a campaign that can just be turned on and turned off (and we ensure our clients understand as such), and
• that listening to and making sense of the conversation is more about hard work versus relying too heavily on the myriad shiny new tools that might only do half the job...

Ultimately, it's about getting past the hype, and focusing on what's real, achievable, and makes sense to our client's business or issue... and it's something that Collin, David, and myself attempt to evangelize every day.