It is considered good form among bloggers when they attend a conference to recap the experience. Highlights, lowlights, expectations realized or not, a sort of review of The Good, the Bad and the Meh, as I called the one I did on BlogHer’09.  The title, as you can see, is somewhat shorter for Forward with Ford, the conference I just came back from.

Yes, try as I might, your resident cynic could not find one thing to snort at in the three days I was a guest of Ford Motor Company in Dearborn. The invitation came out of the blue a couple of months ago. When I read the opening–“I’m writing to you on behalf of Ford Motor Company…” –I thought it was just another (yawn) email promo.  Then I read on, “…to invite you to attend the Forward with Ford:  Futuring and Trend Conference, a one of kind event! We are bringing together 100 of our favorite bloggers across the country for an exclusive event in Dearborn, MI on June 21 – 23….”

To say I had a Sally Fields moment and did a virtual turn around to see who it was behind me that they were really talking to is an understatement. I wasn’t alone: there was regular whispering among the 150 or so participants where we tried to figure out what was in Ford’s mind. We were a disparate group.  Some bloggers, some editors, some freelance journalists, some print people, some car people, some whatever.  We were from all over the United States, Canada, and, I believe, Europe as well.

Ford flew each of us to Detroit, put us up at the Dearborn Inn, ferried us around in luxurious coaches, and fed us catered meals that satisfied my foodie sensibility. They had the likes of Malcolm Gladwell and Joel Garreau sharing their visions of the near present and the far future. They brought in experts and their opposite number at Ford in living green, emerging technologies, safety, design, r & d, and aging population to talk about trends as well as how they were being implemented at Ford. They took us to the Fillmore Detroit for dinner, a discussion of the future of music and a private concert by the band, The Head and The Heart. And then they took us out to the Ford test track and let us experience all the bells and whistles–some available now and some not for a while–that we had heard about in the panels the day before.

It was fun; it was informative; I’m sure I gained weight from the incredible food, but most of all, I gained a new-found respect for Ford. Child of the ‘60s and ‘70s that I am, I have an inborn sneer meter for all things corporate. The whole time I was in Dearborn, it never registered. Instead what I saw was a company with eyes on the present and the future and taking very seriously their place and responsibilities in the world. You can tell so much about the ethos of a place by the attitudes of the employees and I kept asking, “Is Ford really such a great place to work? Or are they shooting you all up with happy juice?” The answer from one and all was, “No, Ford is really a great place to work.”

The answer to our question, “Why is Ford doing this?” can be found in this article from Industry Week, Ford Embraces Social Media Geeks. Bottom line, to quote Marisa Bradley, Ford’s Consumer Media Communications Manager, “It really started when we looked at our consumer audience, and knowing who we need to reach and who we need to continue to tell the Ford story to….And so we thought it would be an interesting group if we pulled together about half bloggers and half traditional media, and then let’s not just talk about cars, but let’s also take a look at the biggest issues facing consumers today….[T]his wasn’t about coverage necessarily….this is really about building a relationship and starting a relationship.”

As far as I’m concerned, they succeeded.