Innovations, ideas, case studies on my fifth day as a (business) card-carrying member of Technology Decisions, I was swept up in the rush of day and night networking, information exchange and inspiring pandemonium at the IASA conference in San Francisco last month.

Not unlike the vast majority of conferences most of us have attended, there was the usual cacophony of facts, opinions, suggestions, and sharing of advice and experiences, both good and bad. Yet every so often, like the proverbial bolt of lightning, certain insights, by their very poignancy, seemed to rise up above all others. Many of these mission-critical lessons may stem from the tough economy weve found ourselves in, exacerbated by such cataclysmic, incomprehensible, and unimaginable events as September 11. Bottom line: When the going gets tough, the tough get smart smart about technology spending (and that doesnt mean not spending money, just investing it wisely), smart about core business values and goals, smart about whom the customers are (whether internal or external) and how to attract and retain them.

Here are some arguably smart observations, sifted from the conference, shared in the belief youll find them interesting if not useful: