I attended the Cultural & Heritage Tourism Alliance conference held in Seattle about a week and a half ago. Seattle is a favorite destination of mine, and visiting during the holiday season did not disappoint. They do wonderful job lighting up the city.

I was there to speak about Philly and how we are using social media to connect with travelers, but I really felt like I was schooled by some other smart session leaders.

In the morning, we heard from Glenn Kelman, President & CEO of Redfin, who was a breath of fresh air. This guy is the CEO of a healthily growing business, but he hasn't lost site of what's important: his site's users. He knows which users are cult-like in their devotion to the site and periodically reaches out to them directly and personally, via email, shares things like new features they are thinking about adding and asks for those loyalists feedback. And he LISTENS to their feedback. That's engagement.

Cari Guittard, Executive Director, Business for Diplomatic Action, talked a tough topic, "The State of America's Reputation and How it Affects Tourism." I applaud her for starting by acknowledging Zakaria's recent Newsweek story titled "America The Unwelcoming." If you haven't read it, I strongly encourage you to do so. It is an alarm bell sounding for all Americans and our economy, which is largely reliant nationwide on tourism dollars. The basis of the story is built around the Commerce Department finding that "the United States is the only major country in the world to which travel has declined in the midst of a global tourism boom." This, as the dollar drops against many foreign currencies.

She showed us Discover America Partnership, which is a site targeting businesses and individuals, seeking to connect with them in a big enough way that inspires them to act as positive WOM ambassadors for the US when they travel. I like the idea, the execution underwhelmed me. I felt like the red-white-and-blue of it all was too establishment to win over someone like me, who travels abroad and doesn't politically align with the Bush Administration. Design-wise, I think the header graphic wastes too much of the page and looks like a McDonald's commercial (an image that I would think we'd want to get away from overseas).

They did much better on their "consumer" site, world citizens guide. I like the design, the animation and the content here. Do click on the "100 People" tab - absolutely brilliant educational application. Simple, easy to comprehend and to me, thought provoking about "my" world vs the global world we all share. I can see why they won a Webby. To win another Webby, I think they should refresh this site with a area for a community. A place for people to converse, speak, listen and learn. Or, if they aren't equipped/ready to build their own community, join a pre-exisiting social networking community that will better connect them with "connected" citizens; be present and participate in a NUMBER of those communities. We're already there, so rather than working relentlessly to convert us, come JOIN us. Get in the conversation. Sure, those traditional media hits are great for some people; but many of us employ the internet as our default news source. We're missing your 60 Minutes hits, unless it's recapped on Gawker or you post it on Viddler.

Revolution isn't just occuring overseas. We are in the midst of a global social revolution. The world has changed, whether we like it or not. So marketers (yes, even you, USA), either get up to speed and join the new world or let it pass you by, but understand, the global social revolution is in full swing and there's no turning back now.