Great topic, Mark, and thanks for the comment, Mike. I know Mark asked for one take-away, but I'd like to share a few random things that I learned or heard that I found very interesting.

This came from Jamie Gorski at the final social media panel: Apparently, Michael Jackson's death caused so much non-work network traffic (i.e., YouTube, etc) that it significantly slowed down their servers!

And a few take-aways from Nadeen Green and Doug Chasick's session:
1) It is legal to target Spanish speaking groups, according to HUD, without having to target every other minority group.
2) If you have a game at your community where you require a resident or prospect to do something for a chance to win a prize, you are running an illegal lottery. For example, "Drop by our community this Saturday for a chance to win a flat screen TV" would be illegal.

And a few quotes from the keynote panel:

David Lynd: "Morale is one our focuses this year." You have to keep your people motivated by keeping the message positive.

Rick Campo: "We don't produce housing, we don't rent apartments, we provide homes for a lot of people."

Jeff Adler: "It's having emotion [...] that creates value."

(Jeff Adler's focus on the emotional aspects to renting caught many of us off guard. Hopefully this is a trend towards a focus on resident satisfaction through "sense of community", but in a trackable and quantifiable way.)

I think you are right that it has always been an emotional undertaking, but what struck me was the focus in that particular panel. Historically I would have assumed that type of panel would have been very asset appreciation focused with a slight emphasis on occupancy, insomuch that it achieved a certain level of profitability for the operations side. In other words, if it had been a group of marketing directors, I could have expected the focus to be on the emotional side of our business a lot more than that panel. It was quite refreshing from my point of view.

Great comment, Steve, and it really hits on what Sparkle Allen posted recently - social media is great, but we need to also make sure we are focusing on the basic elements: http://www.multifamilyinsiders.com/home/multifamily-blogs/Back-to-the-basics.html