Thanks to attendees @lizaK , @prospectMX , @ryanbuch, @emikubota and others (?) for your live twittering from the Inc. 5000 conference here in Washington DC.

How did I miss you guys?!

If you want to see the (small) stream of Tweets with live updates from the conference, go to search.twitter.com and plug in #inc500 or inc 5000.

I predict that attendees at next year's Inc. 5000 conference will be fully immersed in social media. This year was just the beginning...

Seth Godin and Tom Peters got into a friendly shouting match yesterday under the bemused eye of moderator Susan Sobbott, president of AmEx OPEN and host of the AmEx OPEN Forum for small business.

The three were the mainstage attraction at the Inc. 5000 conference before lunch on Friday Sept. 19, 2008.

Susan posed some great questions about leadership, customer service, the loyalty of employees vs. customers, and controlling your brand.

The customer service question ("True or False? Technology has killed customer service") prompted the screaming. The Web makes for great customer service, Tom said, citing Amazon's recommendations feature and how easy it is to book a flight online.

It's not just about the technology, Seth said, citing the horrible experience of present day air travel. "Customer service is now for things that go wrong... your standards are way too low!"

"Where," Seth asked, "is the box where you check to pay more. I'll pay more and you'll be nice to me? Where is that??"

Below Seth reprises an answer to a question from the audience: "Is social networking important for small business?"

"If you're not blogging, you're an idiot," management uber-guruTom Peters told hundreds of attendees at the Inc. 5000 conference yesterday. "No single thing in the last 15 years has been more important to me professionally than blogging... It's changed my thinking, it’s changed my outlook… it’s the best damn marketing tool and it’s free."

Tom's blog is featured on his company home page.

In response to a question from moderator Susan Sobbott, president of AmEx OPEN ("True or False? You have control over your brand"), Tom said his perception of "brand" has changed since he started blogging in August 2004.

"The brand is now to a significant degree the quality of the conversation... and the conversation IS the brand," he said.

Fellow panelist Seth Godin agreed: "What matters is the humility that comes from writing (a blog), that forces you to describe why you did something. It doesn't matter if anyone is reading your blog. You're doing it for yourself."

Below Tom reprises how blogging has changed his life and his business.

While Michael Port was busy on stage this afternoon at the Inc. 5000 conference, his co-author Elizabeth Marshall took a few minutes to do a Q & A with me. Michael and Liz have just published The Contrarian Effect.

Q: Is it true that you and Michael considered titling the book The Costanza Effect? I'm a huge Seinfeld fan so that might have worked for me.

A: Yes, that's right. Michael initially thought of The Constanza Effect after seeing a Seinfeld rerun called "The Opposite." George Costanza (Jason Alexander) laments being kind of a loser - an unemployed shmuck who can't get a date and who lives with his parents.

During the episode, he comes to the conclusion that the reason he's had failure after failure is because he's been doing the wrong thing, so he immediately vows to do the exact opposite. As a result, he not only gets the girl, but experiences great success.

While the Seinfeld episode pokes fun at George's logic, we really do want anyone who sells for a living to take what they've been told to do - or think they should do - and try doing the opposite instead.

As for the title, although we loved The Constanza Effect, we felt that readers who didn't love Seinfeld wouldn't get it or appreciate it.

Q: I hate getting cold calls so I love the premise of the book. Give us your top 3 specific examples of contrarian selling that works.

A: One specific reason that cold calling and many of the other typical sales tactics don't work is that they are out of sync with today's customers. Many of the typical tactics had their beginnings around 1887, which is evidenced by the NCR Primer, a training and sales manual for the salesmen of National Cash Register.

In contrast today's customer can not only screen out unwanted calls, emails or junk mail, but they know that they control the buying process.

So three examples:

1. Business software company Softrax more than doubled its sales (from $12 million to $27 million) after they implemented a free, monthly “Always Have Something To Invite People To” offer - an Executive Webcast Series. Instead of calling and asking for the sale, Softrax positioned itself as a trusted advisor.

2. Apple offers value; they don't sell. Their sales associates create a low-pressure, fun and stimulating environment - a place to spend Sunday afternoon - that invites customers to buy when they are ready. As a result, Apple doesn’t have to ask for the sale.

3. By taking steps to understand their customer’s interests and preferences, Amazon makes relevant and customized offers. Every time you log in they serve up recommendations and suggestions in sync with previous purchases. We know we all succumb to this.

Ed. note: As Tom Peters put it earlier today in a discussion about online customer service, "To my great irritation, I like five out of six of (Amazon's) offers... and I buy them all!"

Q: Any advice for Inc. 5000 companies who want to keep growing even as Wall Street and the economy are in a nosedive?

A: Absolutely! Adopt the Contrarian Effect. Regardless of the stock prices or the economic outlook, human nature stays the same. Which means that people (and companies) will buy to express their values and priorities.

Inc. 5000 companies have an incredible opportunity to tap into what potential clients are looking for and to build trust and credibility with them over time.

Q: So it's really about value and trust, not about selling.

A. Yup, you got it.

"We've finished chapter 1 and we're just starting," Dell's VP Bob Pearson told me, noting that 1.46 billion people are online today but only 1.6 million of them visit Dell's site daily.

VP BP, as he's called, is in charge of listening to the 10,000 conversations about Dell that are taking place every day online. With his team of 42, Dell enters about 100 of those conversations each day, Bob said. They do it via blogs as well as the newly-popular Twitter. Dell has 65 official Twitterers, including digital media team member@RichardatDELL, who has 1,779 followers.

I'm sitting in Bob's session at the Inc. 5000 conference and he's just outlined 10 recommendations for small business.

Dell's launches a new Facebook community, Social Media for Small Business

Seems Bob is everywhere today. Dell announced a few hours ago that it has launched a Facebook community called Social Media for Small Business. You'll see Bob featured in the video on the home page. This does look very cool. Lots to explore including a screencast intro to social media tools like Netvibes (Bob's favorite, he told us), a discussion board, best practices... and (why not) deals on Dell products for SMB.

Listening to Bob now explain the new Facebook community and to Q & A from the audience. Will post Q & A video later.

Update: Below Bob talks about how tapping into Facebook's community is like entering a new country.

Jim Collins asks "Does everyone here have a To Do list?" Hundreds of Inc. 5000 entrepreneurs are assembled for his main stage presentation. All hands go up. Then he asks: "How many people in this room have a Stop Doing list?" Appreciative murmurs, but few hands.

He says he won't pose the existential question. "I will leave it up to you whether to put a Stop Doing on your To Do list."

An attendee then asks what's on his Stop Doing list. He thinks briefly and responds:

His major Stop Doing this year is to get rid of layers and re-organize his company from top down management to a hub and spoke model. "I want to be in direct touch," he says.

His second Stop Doing is to stop unnecessary fire drills. By that he means responding too dramatically to emails and causing havoc amongst his staff. Now he only does email when he’s offline. He doesn’t hit Send, he hits the Save button - and sends later.

He pauses... a third Stop was one of his most important. Some years ago he decided to stop watching TV. "It made time for this glorious activity called Thinking and Reading," he crows.

He ends by giving us a Top Ten To Do list:

1. Go to his site and download the Good to Great diagnostic tool and do it with your team to find good areas and areas that need work.

2. How many of your key seats have the right people in them? Track as rigorously as you track your financials.

3. Really embrace getting Gen Yers in your face. Aggressively seek them out and get them to make you feel uncomfortable. (Wish he'd said more about this... didn't give us any specifics.)

4. In chapter 5 of Good to Great we talk about using a Council. Build your Council (of five to 12 people in your organization) and use it socratically.

5. Have someone start tracking your questions-to-statement ratio and try to double it next year.

6. He tells us he could work 1000 hours this next week and still not finish. What's key is taking time to think. Schedule white space days six months out, where nothing is scheduled and the only purpose of the day is to think.

7. Start your Stop Doing list.

8. Know what your values are. (Use a guide on his site, he says. Will link to when I find it.)

9. Set a 15 – 25 year BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).

10. Prepare the company to be great without you.

This is live from best-selling E-Myth author Michael Gerber's Dreaming Room workshop at the Inc. 5000 conference. It's 2:10 PM and he's talking louder and louder. The room is packed... looks like over 100 entrepreneur-attendees. He speaks extemporaneously. Pauses a lot. References Ray Kroc and McDonald's repeatedly. The room is rapt.

Kroc created a system that's replicable, that is simple, that can be taught in every detail, that delivers predictable value to every customer. "And the food is terrible! If he can do it, you can do it."

Dressed in a dark suit and red tie (not his trademark white suit and pink tie), the 72-year-old Gerber sits on a barstool at the front of the room. He's surprisingly short. No podium. No slides.

One of his central points is that most entrepreneurs are working in their businesses, but not on them. They are slaves to the get-it-out-the-door, make payroll, just keep going mentality. That's not what a successful business is, he says. Heads nod.

"Successful entrepreneurs possess four characteristics: Dreamer, Thinker, Storyteller, Leader."

Here’s what’s stupid, he says. "You say you want to be your own boss. But why do you want to work for a stupid boss? You have to transform the world with your business."

Write this down, he says: "I have a dream, I have a vision, I have a purpose, I have a mission." The dream is the outcome or result. The vision is the method. The purpose is the great "who" - you're doing this for someone, to transform their life. The mission is the how, the tactical mission.

Some great nuggets so far:

- What a successful company does is turn a commodity into a product (Starbucks, FedEx, McDonald's)

- How do you make your company the coin of the realm (FedEx it; I need a Starbucks)?

- It's not about brilliant ideas, it's about looking at obvious things a little differently

- The sole difference between Apple and Microsoft is that (Steve) Jobs is an idealist and (Bill) Gates was a pragmatist

- Most small businesses are already out of business and they don't even know it

More TK. He's just finished and I'm going to go ask him some questions.

Update: Here's my brief Q & A with Michael. I asked why it was so difficult to figure out what business you're in. He responded that I hadn't understood him. The challenge is to figure out what the result of your business is.

Why should someone do business with your company? What's your 30-second "tell and sell"? That's what author and communications consultant Sam Horn calls it and what she'll explain, step-by-step, in her presentation Friday Sept. 19 at 3:30 PM: POP!: Create the Perfect Pitch, Title and Tagline for Anything.

I spoke with Sam recently to get a preview of her session. What are some of the steps, I asked, to create that perfect elevator pitch. Her answers were intriguing - and practical.

"POP! (the title of her book) stands for Purposeful, Original and Pithy," she told me. What you're looking for is a memorable sound bite that elicits "that chuckle or bark of laughter when the eyebrows go up."

Sam, who is also the author of Tongue Fu! (the verbal form of Kung Fu), said it's particularly important for entrepreneurs in crowded markets to Pop! their business or brand. "The best way to corner a niche is to create a niche and the best way to create a niche is to coin your own word."

Step 1: The first thing you need to do is alphabetize your core words, Sam explained. You need to create a word or phrase that you can trademark, obtain the domain (unique URL) for and possibly even license and merchandize.

A quick example (there are dozens in her book): a bar in Alexandria, VA wanted to distinguish itself from every other watering hole. They had the idea of creating a happy hour for patrons with dogs. In other words, you could bring your dog with you. So... using the alphabet method, they went through every letter until they came up with (you guessed it): Yappy Hour.

Step 2: Don't repeat cliches, Sam advises, rearrange them. For example, she said, the motto of The Economist is Great Minds Like a Think (I don't see this on Economist.com but I love it.)

Go to www.clichesite.com for help, she advises. Identify your 10 to 20 core words and look for cliches that use those words. Keep going through the alphabet. (Hmmm... this sounds fun but hard. Probably best to do as a team with a couple of pizzas on hand and maybe some beer. That's my suggestion, not Sam's.)

Step 3: Test market the various versions of your brand name or slogan. "Watch people's eyebrows," Sam said. "If they knit or furrow, it means they don't get it." And if they can't repeat it, "they didn't get it and they won't remember it."

Step 4: Take a page from some recognizable brands and use alliteration. There's a reason, Sam said, that it's Bed, Bath and Beyond. And not Bed, Toilet and Shower. Best Buy and not Best Purchase. Circuit City and not Circuit Town.

Step 5: Consider attending Sam's session on Friday. However, it will be hard to choose. There are half a dozen other sessions during the 3:30 - 4:30 PM slot that sound excellent, including presentations by lifestyle celeb Tim Ferriss and Think Big guru Michael Port.

Stay tuned; more previews to come.

Despite the fact that 39% of the Inc. 500 are blogging (according to a 2007 study), I've found few Inc. 5000 conference speakers or attendees who are actively engaged in using social media. And when I say "actively," I mean more than the occasional blog post.

So it was fun to meet Greg Cangialosi, CEO of Blue Sky Factory (#1,861 on this year's list), on Twitter.

Twitter, if you're not familiar with it, is the microblogging platform du jour. BusinessWeek recently profiled a handful of Twittering CEOs and featured an article explaining the brand building benefits of using this new social media tool. Twitter now has over 1 million users a month.

If you're wondering how I "met" Greg on Twitter, let me briefly explain. This may also explain why microblogging works as a marketing strategy. I tweeted about choosing a new email service provider. (Yes, "tweet" is a made-up word that explains what you do when you type a short entry, up to 140 characters, into your Twitter account.)

I mentioned @BlueSkyFactory (the company's twitter handle) as one vendor I am considering. Greg saw it and tweeted me back, saying: "Hey, let one of our sales reps give you a demo."

By checking his Twitter profile, I quickly determined that he was CEO of the company. I was impressed. A CEO who would take the time to contact me directly?

I chatted with Greg by phone today to find out why he's spending time, as a CEO, on Twitter.

"I'm one of the converted CEOs that gets it," he told me. "And my sales force does too." He's convinced that business development is a by-product of participating in conversations. "All these tools (the company also has a blog and a Facebook page) are ways for us to amplify our signal."

Even more effective, he explained, is when a third party recommends your company via Twitter or in the blogosphere. When social media guru Chris Brogan mentions Blue Sky Factory, "we get a flood of inquiries," Greg said. Chris has nearly 15,000 followers - people who have signed up to follow or read his every tweet. (Anything over 1,000 followers is considered an impressive following.)

Oh and if you've read this far, visit my Twitter profile, sign up for a free account and then "follow" me. That way I'll see your messages when you tweet. Put the @ sign in front of my Twitter handle (like this: @debbieweil) and I'll see what you're writing.

I'll be twittering updates from the Inc. 5000 conference floor the rest of this week. I'm looking for more examples of Inc. 5000 companies who are using social media as a marketing strategy - and finding it effective. Come find me if you're one of them.

Full conference agenda here.

If you had to pick two faces that are legendary at Inc.'s annual conference, you could safely choose Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham. Norm is a veteran entrepreneur whose six companies include CitiStorage, a three-time Inc. 500 honoree. Bo is Inc.'s editor-at-large.

What's notable about this pair, if you're not familiar with their work, is that they have been collaborating for 14 years on Inc.'s monthly Street Smarts column. Their first jointly authored book, The Knack: How Street Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever, is due out in October 2008.

I snagged the two of them on a conference call recently to find out more about how they work together. They are also appearing jointly this week at the Inc. 5000 Conference where they'll talk more about their new book (they'll reveal 10 things you *must* understand in order to develop street smarts).

Two minutes into the call, it was quickly apparent that I was eavesdropping on the Bo and Norm Show. They interrupt each other, contradict each other and happily finish each other's sentences. How did you two start collaborating, I asked. That started a 45-minute riff.

After meeting Norm at an Inc. 500 conference in the early 1990s, Bo asked him for permission to write a story about a couple Norm was coaching as they started and grew a home-based business selling computer supplies. Norm responded by saying he wanted to write the story. Bo and the other Inc. editors laughed.

Breaking editorial rules, however, they showed him a draft before the story ran. "You're not doing it in the right voice," Norm told them. The article was amended with Norm's input, then ran as the cover story in July 1995. It got a tremendous response from readers and prompted the magazine to ask Norm if he'd like to write a column. Thus was born Bo and Norm's collaboration on Street Smarts. The two also talked about writing a book together but that project got side-tracked for over a decade.

Fast forward to the present. The two live on opposite coasts and sometimes on different continents. (Bo spends part of the year in France.) How do they write a monthly column together? I pictured all sorts of online collaboration tools and long distance phone calls.

Wrong.

It starts with dinner and a good glass of Sancerre (good choice - definitely my favorite white wine). "We start talking, then we go back to Norm's place. We sit on his back porch overlooking the East River in Manhattan. We talk some more over cigars and port and ideas begin to form," Bo explained.

Next morning, they sit down together face to face and tape record an interview. "Usually we only have a sketchy idea of what we're going to do. But at the end of an hour we know, yeah, we have a column," Bo said.

The interview is transcribed and Bo does a draft. Norm looks at it and says "this isn't quite right and here's what you need to say." In effect, Norm edits. "In the last 10 years we haven't missed a month, which is an achievement," Bo said.

As to why they insist on collaborating face-to-face... it's the same in business, Norm points out. "We bring our customers in to meet our staff and the relationship becomes deeper. This touchy feely thing is important. Even if 99 percent of what we do is online, relationships get better if you touch the other person."

Bo and Norm will be talking about The Knack... and How to Get It on Friday Sept. 19th from 3:30 - 4:30 PM EST. Full conference agenda here.