We’re at the big annual powwow for top marketing execs at the Biltmore in Arizona. This year our client and friend Steve Sullivan of Liberty Mutual presides over the whole thing as Chairman of the ANA – which has to rate among the highest of honors in client-side marketing.

Steve and HH CEO Mike Sheehan will be speaking on Saturday morning, coming up on stage right after Nobel peace prize winner Al Gore — assuming he can jet back from Sweden fast enough.

Suzanne Vranica of the Wall Street Journal has already noted that the dominant topic at the conference will be the ongoing transition to digital. As further proof, consider who’s wined and dined the attendees in the first 12 hours of the conference:

Opening cocktail reception: Facebook
Dinner: AOL
Post reception: Yahoo!
Breakfast: Microsoft

Interesting that every calorie ingested by leading advertisers at the conference so far has been digitally sourced. Not exactly “Intel Inside”, but close.

All a good lead-in to the first speaker up this morning: Steve Ballmer, talking about his plan for how Microsoft plans to make billions from advertising (cue Dr. Evil laugh: mmmmmwahahahaha).