I started the week sipping on Maccallan, with my Social Media Week peeps at the New York Public Library. Note to self: spend less time behind my computer screen, more time speaking with the cats who are chasing the frontiers of the space.

One eternal question at tech and social media confluxes is: can viral media really be engineered? The conventional answer is no, which is why it was so refreshing to see a scrappy band of misfits out in Utah of all places do exactly what traditional advertising agencies struggle so mightily to do. The story of Orabrush and their Youtube-based advertising strategy is like a primer on how the little guy can beat the brand Golaiths. Ready to do it yourself? Here’s a rundown on the key takeaways.

The subject of this week’s Indiepreneur Book Club, Business Model Generation, is a strategic and creative book aimed at helping businesses craft better plans and model. And the author of the book has plenty of social media moxie of his own–he tweeted me about the review before the pixels were even dry! A good lesson in how important it is to track mentions of your brand or product via channels like Twitter.

Total irreverence was enjoyed by all last night at the #Suxorz panel at the Gershwin Hotel (pictured above), where we parsed the delicacies of the year’s most flat-footed and tone deaf social media campaigns. These included BP’s response to their oil spill disaster, Cisco’s accountant, and the winner (or loser), depending on your point of view, Price Chopper (who tried to get someone who had badmouthed them on Twitter fired).

Have a great weekend, everyone!