On the train ride home after day one, the discussions Jay and I had about SES tended to revolve around how useful / worthwhile the day had been. The main question that kept coming up was “if I had just paid $1150 to attend this conference, would I feel like I got value out of it or would I feel ripped off?” Every time I would bring up a positive experience from day one, Jay would ask me that question again and he was right. We got into SES with full press passes, which means we didn’t have to pay to attend… that being said, when reporting on the show we have to put ourselves in the mindset of ‘how would I feel about this show if I purchased my entry’.
After day one, for me personally the answer to that question would have been “I don’t feel like I got value for the amount I paid.” After the second day, I’d tell you “ask me again in a few weeks, and I’ll let you know.” More on that later… I’d like to go over the different types of people who should attend SES and why.
Technical / PR Representatives from the Mid to Large Enterprise
If you think SEO is a Finnish integrated paper products company with respectable YTD performance, then you need someone from your company at this conference. SES is great way to get your staff up to snuff on the basics of what SEO / SEM has become. SES really drove home the (accurate) point that the industry has changed so much in just the last few years. The problem is the disparity in the business world vs. the search engine world. A few years is a huge amount of time for a search engine, and a lot (if not everything) can change in such a short period of time. Businesses, on the other hand, tend to be lumbering, slow moving beasts. The larger they are, the slower they are. Having an outdated search model can not only be ineffective, but in some cases it can actually harm your online presence. SES can be a good way to keep your company up to speed.
SEO / SEM Professional or Amateur
This would be the category I fall into (amateur). If you’re already well versed in the industry, you probably won’t learn too much. Yes, there were definately some presentations that made me think “wow, I haven’t heard that before…that’s a great idea”. However, these relatively few moments did not add up to a $1150 worth of value for me personally. So if you plan to attend, how do you get your value?
Network like it’s 1997: you have a cool sounding domain name and are standing in a room of venture capital. I did very little of this on the first day, and that probably didn’t help my overall experience. I did network a bit more on day two, but certainly not enough. Next SES show, I plan to focus on networking with other attendees more than I did. I can’t stress the importance of this if you’re in the industry and planning to attend. This is really the best way to extract the value out of your ticket price.
Good Profits.
