Yesterday I spent the day at TechCrunch’s ‘Real Time Crunch-up’. This despite having no idea what a ‘Crunch-up’ actually is.

The important thing is that Erick had asked me to help moderate his panel about marketing within ‘real-time streams’, which is a subject close to my heart. So close in fact, that had he asked me to help moderate a panel about child rape and its place in the public school system I couldn’t have been keener to weigh in.

I’ll get back to my own contribution in a moment, but first, as a courtesy to my paymasters, I should probably relate a few of my  ‘key learnings’ from the event.

1) There is such a thing as a ‘key learning’, a phrase which I heard at least three times during the day, and which I gather is what an ‘opinion’ becomes when spoken by an idiot.

2) Gabe Rivera from TechMeme loves bookmarks. How else to explain his glee when he discovered that each of the four million free copies of Marc Benioff’s ‘Salesforce.com Playbook‘ scattered about the conference contained a little strip of cardboard sponsored by Amazon. “Cool. I can use these for my other books,” he exclaimed, removing each bookmark and pocketing it before carefully placing the books back on the table.

3) Even with a back-cover quote from Neil Young, you apparently can’t give away Marc Benioff’s ‘Salesforce.com Playbook‘. At the start of the day, there were towering piles of the thing on every surface – one free for every attendee. By the end of the day: towering piles of the thing on every surface, ready to be returned to the publisher. Perhaps Benioff should have taken a leaf out of his own playbook: Play #42 reads “Don’t Dis Your Product With A Discount”, with Benioff explaining that “I wouldn’t even give my own grandmother a discount.”  Yet apparently he wouldn’t think twice about giving the whole book away to a room full of the only people who are likely to actually buy the thing. (My book didn’t win its Congressional Medal Of Honor by being given away free).

4) At TechCrunch conferences, even the food is patriotic. After the American flag next to the judges table debacle at TechCrunch50, I was worried that Arrington might shy away from overt displays of Americanness at future events. Not so – inside the meal box provided to each attendee was a disposable handwipe, packaged inside a little stars and stripes pouch. To reaffirm my love of this country, I stuck one of the pouches to the front of the podium on the stage.

5) Dogs frighten room service waiters, but love Gabe Rivera from Techmeme.

And so to my panel – and to be honest, I was a little anxious at the thought of it given that my fellow participants were Erick and five marketing experts – Sean Rad of Ad.ly, Ryan Amos of DailyBooth, Jesse Engle of CoTweet, Philip Nelson of NewTek and Robin Bechtel who acts as ‘digital agent’ to Britney Spears amongst others.

Read on at TechCrunch…