I spent the last few days in Deer Valley, UT at the annual Polaris Venture Partners Digital Media Summit or PVPDMS08 as we casually refer to it (right). It’s a great event where the CEOs of our digital media companies mix with industry heavies, both successful startup entrepreneur types and the folks with multi-billion dollar budgets. A few days of focused round table discussions, good food and fun physical activities are the best way to build relationships. It’s one of the many ways the Polaris network helps our entrepreneurs.

The weather this year was both great and marginal. Deer Valley got about  55-60” of snow in four days. The powder made the skiers happy. Those of us who don’t do the downhill thing went snowmobiling. We had a good time although snowfall killed the visibility as you can see on the pic. On the flip side, getting to dinners with the road closings was a challenge and today a few attendees narrowly escaped an avalanche at Deer Valley Resort.

We covered many important topics: from how to build organizations in digital media startups and scale infrastructure, to new content & advertising models, to monetization of UGC and other forms of social media, etc. Many of the comments were insightful due to the diversity of backgrounds and perspectives around the table. I have a few good follow-on topics for blogging that I hope to organize and post in the next few weeks.

On Friday the group was abuzz following the news of the Microsoft offer to buy Yahoo. Several of the attendees had stayed up overnight and were prepping for board calls and press interviews. Microsoft does best when someone is breathing down its neck. I hope the same is true for Google.