By David Thompson, Genius.com

Just back from the Sales 2.0 conference in San Francisco…WOW! What a difference 3 years makes. When Genius organized the first Sales 2.0 conference in 2007, it was on the back of the whole Web 2.0 movement and was just a loosely defined concept to help Sales managers understand the huge impact Web technology could have on sales productivity. From Webex, to Oracle, to Hoovers, to Genius, the founders of the movement were tapping into a rich vein of business insight just waiting for a huge audience.

Sales 2.0 2010

Here we are 3 years and one HUGE RECESSSION later and boy has Sales 2.0 taken off. From an intrepid early visionary event of less than 200 people, to over 600 people and growing fast, the conference and movement have taken on a life of their own. The biggest change I noticed was in the audience.  Now over 50% of attendees were marketers, there to learn how marketing can drive bigger Sales results at lower cost. This sea change was also reflected in the vendor lineup.  From being the being the only marketing automation company at the first 6 shows, but Genius.com has been joined by worthy competitors like Marketo and Eloqua–all jumping on the Sales 2.0 bandwagon. It’s great to see that our friends in the Marketing Automation space are now getting it: marketing really is all about Sales. The more of us who jump on this message, the better it is for customers.

And that really was the vision of Sales 2.0 from the beginning. In fact, the Fall show will probably be called “Sales and Marketing 2.0″ As I said in my remarks at the first conference, “Sales 2.0″ is really “Buying 2.0.” On Amazon, there’s no difference between the marketing process and the sales process. It’s one seamless buying experience. And that’s what Sales 2.0 needs to aspire too. It’s truly gratifying to see our baby all grown up and embraced by so many new advocates.

Long live Sales 2.0!