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Good conferences like Echo can leave you with a little bit of information overload.  While I shared some notes from most of the sessions I went to, I want to share some of my personal takeaways.  Consider it a tasty tidbit from each presentation.

• What is your social media mission?  When we start using a tool, we need to ask why we’re doing this and what we hope will come of it.  Get more focused than just a digital extension of your organizational statement.  If we don’t know where we’re going, we have no idea if we’re getting there.  Once you decided your mission put the resources behind it.  If you’re not committing resources to it, you really don’t want it. From Scott McClellan
• There is no creative class; just a human class.  It’s the mindset that matters.  We all have God’s creativity inside of us. We can’t let our preconceived notions get in the way of what or who we consider creative.  From Carlos Wittaker.
• When you start a new project, you’ll face three fears.  The fear of starting, the fear of failing and the fear of success.  Ignore those voices inside of you because they’re rarely positive.  From Jon Acuff.
• You have 43 seconds of someone's initial attention when they come to your website.  27% of people in a church less than a year found it online first.  85% of people say their church website is an important place for them to learn more about connecting with the church.  From Drew Goodmanson.
• When we create or design things without purpose, they are nothing but a fad.  Our job is to create a solution to a problem.  We are not just making something pretty.  From Barton Damen.
• Designers are different than their end user.  Don’t design for yourself, but with the end user in mind.  Your job is to serve no matter what you do.  From Joshua Blankenship.
• If you’re trying to have better relationships with the people you work with, there are three things you can do.  Schedule time to listen to the people who are causing you problems.  Drop the turf wars so you can spend time finding the right people to be on board with what you’re doing.  Finally, like JFK famously said, ask what you can do for others.  You can have more influence by giving up more control. From Kem Meyer.
• Last year's buzzword: story. This year: action.  (Make your creative ideas a reality.)  From Tim Schreader via Twitter.

If you’re still looking for more Echo 2011 goodness here are a few bonus resources:

• The guys from Media Salt presented “Church Communications on the Cheap.”  I wish I would have gone to that session, but here are their notes which are full of some great tips.
• Josh Burns and Tim Schraeder both took great notes, too.  They also covered some sessions we didn’t.
• If you want to radically change the way your organizations actually makes ideas happen, re-read the notes from Scott Belsky.  It’s sort of a lot of heavy information, but there’s great strategy there.

Thanks to the Echo organizers and speakers for making this a great, practical event.  Even though it’s grown to 1,000 attendees, it’s still a great place to connect and have great one-on-one conversations with some smart people.