Given the climate we’re in, you might expect attendance at a discretionary event like the Forrester’s Marketing Forum to be off this year. So it was pretty smart of Forrester to theme this year’s forum “Using the Down Economy to Catalyze Marketing Change.” I don’t have attendance figures, but many of the discussions I attended were standing-room only. Three topics that generated interest were risk assessment, ROI metrics and (surprise, surprise) Twitter.

I found Forrester’s Shar VanBoskirk’s presentation on perceived versus actual risk pretty insightful. She pointed out that GM used an aggressive marketing approach during the Great Depression to establish market leadership. Obviously, that’s something that GM can’t repeat now, but her point was well taken: when others perceive risk to be high, it can be a good time for you to get aggressive.

The ROI section was packed, reflecting the ever-growing demands from marketers for results that are infinitely measurable. Unfortunately, my key takeaway was that no one has invented the magic bullet of metrics. For now, determining the means to measure ROI must still be done on a case-by-case basis.

And then there was the section devoted to Twitter, the social networking tool everyone is fascinated by but few understand. Reps from JetBlue told the packed house how they use it to reach their 500,000 followers with fare sales, promotions and customer service engagements. But here again, I found that no one seems to have created a replicable strategy for using the tool successfully. Maybe next year?