Aromatic Starbucks coffee (of course) fills my hotel room as first light, obscured by coastal fog, peeks through lace curtains here at the lovely Seattle Marriott Waterfront.
It’s exciting to think that dozens of true search industry luminaries are cloistered within one city block here in the heart of downtown Seattle’s famed waterfront district.
Search executives, consultants, clients, vendors, agencies and technicians handling billions of dollars in marketing-spend and commerce are about to lace up their casual business best and get down to some powerful discussion. SMX Advanced surely is the place to be this classic rainy Seattle morning.
Here’s my personal agenda today:
- Keynote – Kevin Johnson, President, Platform & Services Division, Microsoft. Kevin will cover “Microsoft’s aspirations in the search and online advertising space, including the roles of Live Search and MSN.”
- Blow Your Mind Link Building Techniques with particular interest in seeing Rae Hoffman, Owner, Sugarrae Internet Consulting
- Grand opening of the Expo Hall where we’ll hang with David Szetela and the Clix Marketing crew. Don’t forget to pick up your invitation to the 1:30PM time slot features multiple sessions that are especially hard to choose from: including “Bot Herding” and “Conversion Optimization: Winning After They Arrive.”
- On the SEM Business track I’m going to attend “Creating Value In Your SEM Businesses” where the likes of Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc.and Chris Elwell, President, Third Door Media will serve up “case studies from SEM business executives who have conceptualized and implemented strategies and tactics that make their companies intrinsically valuable.”
- The next Business track session also looks especially relevant in light of how red hot our industry is. I’ll be in the front row @ Funding, Valuing & Selling SEM Businesses.
- One of the most eagerly anticipated sessions of SMX Advanced is You&A With Matt Cutts – The audience will tender “questions directly to the head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts.” This Google executive is extremely well known to advanced search marketers from his blog and speaking engagements.
I speak tomorrow so today is all about networking with industry associates, attending seminars, meeting up with SEM blogger pals and making new friends. I wish I didn’t need to miss any of the 2 dozen 90 minute sessions over the next 36 hours. Stay tuned AIMCLEAR Blog readers. For complete SMX Advanced coverage please visit our friends @ SEORoundTable.
