What's that you say... you wanna know what's happening at WOMMA? Marketers as far as the eye can see, ethics as the battle cry, a cadre of terrific speakers, awards for Word-of-Mouth well done -- and even a heated game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors." Here's the highlights (and some sound bites) from the Word of Mouth Marketing Summit, taking place yesterday and today in Washington, D.C....

Turnout: 500 marketers were out in full force from all over, even Japan. I’d say anywhere between 50%-70% of the attendees are social-media newbies seeing that, when the crowd was asked for a show of hands, only 1/3 of the room had heard of Gawker.com. A good, excited crowd...one could even say our audience is "engaged."

Speechless (almost): Andy Sernovitz, WOMMA’s fearless leader who has led the association to 330+ members, has had laryngitis so we were lucky his voice returned for the big introduction. Come March 2007 Sernovitz will return to a “civilian life” of consulting, speaking and teaching so this is his last event as organizer. Andy's a "start-up guy" and his job here is well done; I am curious what he'll brew up next.

'Stealth' marketers: Apparently “stealth” is the nomenclature WOMMA uses to describe unethical marketers. Personally, I just call ‘em evil…but I guess “stealth” is more diplomatic. If speakers urged "don't do it, just be ethical" once, they said it a hundred times. I need not tell you savvy marketers to be honest (and please do avoid pay-per-post blogging, k?). Even Sernovitz voiced "WOMMA doesn’t have to focus on ethics, it chooses to place them as priority."

The World of WOM: This Summit has me running a lot between sessions ranging "How to Make the WOM Business Case" to "Managing WOM Programs" to "WOM in the Marketing Mix." Add "Working with Bloggers" to "Best Practices on Joining the Conversation" and "Marketing On Second Life." Sessions for Wednesday include Branding, International WOM, Social Networks, Measuring ROI, Mobile WOM and B2B—and many more. I should have brought sneakers.

Get your game on: Particularly brilliant was the lunch session. When not working at TBWA/Toronto, our speaker Douglas Walker is the Managing Director of the World Rock Paper Scissors Society and the RPS World Championships...catapulted to legend and lore purely via WOM marketing. Walker has amassed a passionate fan base and oodles of press. So to facilitate in networking we played Rock, Paper, Scissors for "fun bucks."

Understand that before this day, I’ve played plenty of dodgeball and tag but never Rock, Paper, Scissors. I know that's strange because, well, every WOM marketer at the event told me as such. So in addition to realizing I've been a deprived child, I felt less than and feared making a fool of myself. But this girl's got game after all! I took all the "fun bucks" from my entire table...save one. Hey, at least I didn't get beat by a boy! (But I sure beat a lot of them :-).

Introducing "The Wommies": Like the Webby awards, WOMMA has started the "Wommie Awards" which recognize the best WOM campaigns as they pertain to flair, freshness, cost, reach and challenges overcome. I dig the name. Coca-Cola took first prize for their "Sprite/Lost Experience" (a campaign leveraging the fan frenzy of the TV megahit "Lost"), followed by Yahoo! for their "Yahoo! Answers: A Global Exchange of the World's Knowledge," Brains On Fire's "Creating Teen ViralMentalists for an Anti-Tobacco Use Movement" and Hass M&L's "Creating Buzz for the Canary Project."

Favorite Speaker (so far): Along with everyone in the grand meeting room I tremendously enjoyed Vice Chairman of AOL Ted Leonsis’s keynote. I soaked in everything he had to say but a few things really resonated. Ted advocated “the gestalt of WOM is share” (I'm big on share.) He also drew the paradox of traditional media offering less and less for more money while the most successful new business models are offering more and more for free. Oh, and look for the movie he produced to debut at Sundance next year, I believe it stars Woody Harrelson.

Ted speaks

Favorite "breakout" session: I most enjoyed the "How to Make the Business Case for WOM Marketing Activities" session featuring Jim Nail of Cymfony alongside representatives from Pfizer and Northeastern University who walked us through selling social media internally to corporate departments and management. Advice included "easy does it," "bring in outside experts," and "delight them with data"...just don't use the "but our competition is doing it (!)" argument as that only leads to management focusing on competitive threats instead of organizational opportunities.

No shame in this self-promotion: I expect a spike in membership over the already 500 members of the MarketingProfs Book Club as I made sure to promote it. And, I was able to finally meet Citizen Marketers authors' Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell who are very excited for Group Review beginning Wednesday, January 10th, 2007. And, you guessed it, you can still sign-up for this segment (learn how here).

Ben, me, Jackie

What was missing: YOU. I met great new colleagues and ones I’ve been communicating with but hadn’t personally met. Still I can’t help but think how much better it would be if 1,000 marketers were present as there exist at least 500 of you readers I’m dying to meet.

So to wrap up: be ethical (don't be evil), try new things, keep selling management on the opportunities of social media, contribute to the conversation and listen to your customers. And do make it to WOMMA next year as I'll be there!

Photo credit to the fabulous Josh Hallett. More of Josh's WOMMA Summit photos here.