Reap What You Sow: SMX Advanced

Posted on | June 7, 2010 | No Comments

I think I should say it now, so that no one is surprised later when they do not see me live blogging or Twittering about SMX Advanced… my laptop is more like a desktop, making it cumbersome to carry and use at a search marketing conference. And no, I do not currently own an Apple iPhone (even if I did, Canadian telecommunications providers do not exactly make it viable to own an iPhone given the exuberant costs involved).

Any thoughts I share will be in hindsight rather than in real time, offering the opportunity to ponder and reflect prior to writing about the experiences. I would like to indicate that I am not a conference aficionado and this is in fact my first conference in the US, so anything you read about SMX Advanced will be through the eyes of someone who has been in the industry for a few years, but a newbie to the conferencing world of North America.

Observation 1: Network Your Butt Off
It must be noted that this is the first evening of the conference, registration night, even before any sessions have been held. A ‘meet & greet’ type event was held on this first evening. I have ascertained on night one of this experience that networking is one of the key elements to a successful conference. Though this may sound arbitrarily obvious, it is quite blatantly critical – you will not learn more honestly and candidly from a search marketer than when they are relaxed and comfortable. Sessions are one thing, face to face, one-on-one is a different ball game.

If you are afraid to introduce yourself in a room full of strangers, a conference is not a place to succumb to those fears. You may find yourself alone at one end of the room, holding your “free” drink, anxiously peering at the crowd, hoping someone comes to speak to you, when you should in fact be deciding whom you wish to converse with and making the first move.

Learning from the conferencing experience comes from speaking to people from which you can learn and listening to what they have to say. Sometimes this information comes in between the lines, during a conversation rather than through an orchestrated presentation.

Clay, Hoffman and Weintraub are three names with whom I became personally acquainted tonight. Don’t sound familiar, how about Bruce Clay, Outspoken Media and aimClear.