I’m in Toronto at the Canadian Marketing Association National Conference. It’s actually been a muted event, seems like a lot of marketers in the GTA are rattled by the recession - or maybe it’s the swine flu. Or maybe Upper Canadians just aren’t that much fun.

Anyway, the conference was dominated by social media, of course, as a lot of old school marketers (client and agency sides) are wondering how to do it, how to measure it and how to make the lawyers stop freaking out.

There have been a number of good sessions but I was impressed by one from Clay Shirky, a professor at NYU and a guy who has spent a lot of time thinking and writing about what social media means to society (and to marketers). His central thesis is that “group action just got easier.” Today people can talk directly to each other without the help or permission of any other institution. The middlemen of information are gone - this blog has the same potential reach as the New York Times (oh, some day, yes some day…if only for Dan Culberson’s rapier wit).

Another point that I liked was the idea that in this universe, everyone is in the marketing department. Every interaction they have online (blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc.) is an opportunity to convey a message - of course that message can be positive or negative. So there’s the rub - it’s still about the message and it’s still about “word of mouth”. But today that word of mouth can be amplified globally in almost no time.

But don’t panic. Companies just need to be smarter. A misstep will cost you. Ask the folks at Amazon about how one wrong policy decision can spiral out of control - or just search #amazonfail on Twitter and see the raw response for yourself.