Every time I go to a conference it gets better, and I have no doubt its because I keep meeting awesome people. It makes it harder to give shout outs to people like I did in my re-cap of SMX West in the posts because there are so many. #firstworldproblems
Anyway, I am still suffering from a lack of sleep (should have taken more caffeinated lolly pops from the awesome people at Aimclear), a nauseating flight back and I know tomorrow is going to be insane so if I dont do this post now, it aint gonan happen.
What I Learned
Lot’s. It helped that this year has been crazy with search engine updates and changes happening pretty much all the time. So it has kept us SEO’s sharp. And boy did people bring some good content to the conference.
- Possibly the most important thing I learned at this conference was from Monique Pouget (thank you for letting me pretended to be you when I left my badge in the room) and that is to make sure you have a strong and clear avatar of you across the internet, because someone might take that image and put it on their presentation… and you want to look good for that. Or of course, if you are feeling daring, you can just take Greg Finns advice and get super creative for your avatar.
- Brent Csutoras is doing some pretty wild things with Social. I will be honest, I wasn’t crazy at first when he left the audience with a “find me after the show and I will tell you the Pinterest account secret.” Kinda pissed me off actually, BUT, then I found him, and turns out he was right, he probably shouldn’t be saying those things out loud 🙂 Kudos to Brent. And for everyone else, go find him.
- I will say that I truly believe Casie pretty stole the show (she will deny that) with an incredible presentation and real solid actionable tips for link building, which caused Danny Sullivan to give her a shout out. Not only did she get a shout out for an awesome job, but it was during the most amazing part of the conference. She will go down for that one. (Her Preso is here)
- And while Google came out an made an official statement about Mobile that they prefer Responsive Design, Both Bryson and Cindy Krum (who I am sad I did not get to meet) made some amazing points for reasons why the other methods to which Pierre Far responded that they do also support dynamic serving method with either the same URL or a dedicated mobile page. A very positive panel all in all. And the information that came out if this, undoubtedly entirely changed the mobile space.
- If you didn’t think Entities were important before, well, I would suggest starting to pay attention to them more. Because it seemed like there has been a radical shift and both Google and Bing were constantly talking about Entities, Attributes, Mark up, Schema.org and Authorship. It was kinda nuts, and yes, it felt great that Matt Cutts pretty much supported everything I said in my presentation when he did the You & A with Danny.
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Inspiring People
I feel honored to be among all the awesome people in this industry. Casie beat me to it this time, so to echo her words, these conferences get better every time you go for one simple reason. You know more people.
My favorite things about these shows is meeting new people, hanging out with them and learning what makes them tick. And the thing is, because of this crazy invention called twitter, I actually talk to many of these people on a regular basis (Akvile, Casie, Monique, Mike), which makes it all that much more normal when we see each other in person.
In some situations, I have only met them on twitter (eh-hem Joanna Lord, Justin Briggs, Jonathon Colman) and when I see them in person, well, its just awesome! Take for example the entire SEOmoz team. Most of them I hadn’t met but I learned that apparently the criteria to get hired there is to have an incredible voice (yeah karaoke).
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Side point about Karaoke, I was going to have them play this song (click at your own risk – Rick Galan can vouch for me), but supposedly someone else beat me to it, and I couldn’t gather the courage to do it – Karaoke isn’t my strong suit, but if you click that link, then I still win!
See, the thing is, the people coming to these shows are smart. And, get this, they actually WANT to tell you their tips and tricks. #HEADEXPLOSION <– I know
The Fun and After Parties
I dont want to say too much about this, because to be honest, if you weren’t there I don’t want to make you feel bad. But to sum things up, there are lots of drinks, closing bars, late night trips to catch taxi’s (and then Monique wanting to go back)… enough said. The after parties are full of win. These kinda things happen with lots of aweSoMeXers.
Bottom Line
Invest in your career and your future and just go to these conferences. Enough said.
See you all in Vegas next!
One more thing
Apologize if I left anyone out. I didn’t mean it, I am just really really tired.
And of course, a HUGE thanks to the entire Third Door Media team. You guys are awesome.
Why you NEED to start going to conferences – SMX FTW via @aaronfriedman