Initial Disappointment:
Let’s talk about first impressions. I am sitting in the very first session with Matt Cutts, and I look over to see a presenter on the very next panel creating their PowerPoint slides minutes before their presentation. I flew all the way out to this conference and spent a lot of money. I felt very disappointed that this person had not taken their presentation (or this conference) seriously–at least, not seriously enough to prepare beforehand. I totally understand these presenters are busy. But, for some reason, seeing this rubbed me the wrong way.
To me that presenter is telling me, “Hey you sitting next to me, I have done this panel a dozen times before and I can do it with my eyes closed. I am just going to repeat what I have said at other conferences and not provide any new value to the conversation, because I am not taking Danny’s conference seriously”.
Sure enough, when it was time for that presenter to give their talk, not only was their presentation not “advanced” as advertised, it added no value to the session.
I spoke with 3 people directly after that session and they all repeated the same disappointment. We all felt we had heard the same thing from most of the presenters at previous PubCon and SES shows. We all had the same concern that the rest of the conference was going to be “duplicate content”, and (again) not “advanced…as advertised”.
I totally understand that this was a hard show for Danny Sullivan to put together. Overall, I think Danny and Third Door Media did a great job. But, for what it is worth, here is one suggestion (among many others listed below)…provide more examples. For instance, instead of Rand Fishkin rushing through slides because of the limited time he had to talk about all the social sites that most of us already know about (and repeating what most of us already know from reading his blog), actually concentrate on just one example and how to work that one social site the best.
But, Regardless, Great Access:
So, that aside, I have to say that the conference was really worth the 2 or 3 grand I spent on it. It was worth it because of access to the right people and because the conference was smaller which meant that you could talk to the people that matter. I got almost all my questions answered. For instance I spoke with Greg Boser about a 301 question I had.
Is there an ROI on the conference?
Trying to place an ROI on these conferences is tough because this conference will roll around in my head for the next 6 months like others have done. I will end up germinating ideas down the road that I can work on to help me rank better in the future.
I was reading some of the write ups on Barry site and they have been getting better and better over the past year– so good in fact that you might not have go to the conference. I am not saying that his team is recording the sessions and then transcribing the missing parts (or are they?), but I am amazed anyone can type that fast and be that accurate.
I can see why some of the smaller conferences are catching on because the SES, SMX and PubCon shows have mostly the same speakers and their presentations are very much the same. I bet if you go to the smaller ones like Elite Retreat, SEODays or SEO Class you might get a lot of new info you have not heard before.
Most will argue that the sessions are not the best place to learn new stuff, that would be the bar afterwards - and I agree with that. The point of this post is to help Danny Sullivan and Brett Tabke produce better shows. I am getting tired of hearing a few people almost bragging that they miss most of the sessions because they have heard it all before. It shouldn’t be that way. People should be excited about going to the sessions.
I do a ton of testing on my sites to see what works. While I am not a polished public speaker, like Rand Fishkin or Jake Baillie, I think I could have provided a presentation on my test results that would have added more value than several presenters that didn’t provide any new value (no, I am not fishing to be a presenter).
So, Danny, if you are reading this here are my thoughts on how to make the next one better:
- Do at least one site clinic. I love these because it gets down to details fast and that is what I want.
- Require the presenters to provide at least one example in their session. So, if the session is on duplicate content, make them show an example of a site that is doing it wrong - black out the name of the site name or something to protect the identity of the site, but show how to correct the example site.
- If you are using a well known presenter, make sure their content is unique from other shows including PubCon. Step away from the high level overviews and present just a few detailed examples. Get down to details within the second or third power point slide. If you are only getting seven or 13 minutes don’t try to rush through to try and fit an hour talk into 13 minutes. Just talk about one or two detailed examples we can all learn from.
As I write this post, I am sitting at the airport in Seattle waiting for my flight to Denver. It is easy to be long-winded in the airport. I would hope this post is taken as constructive criticism, and not just…well…criticism. I did have a great time, and enjoy being a part of this “cottage industry”.
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8 users responded in this post
David - I respect your opinions, but I think you’ve got to remember that you have a very unique viewpoint on things. You’re an experienced SEO who plays in this stuff all the time and reads the blogs/forums/etc. To ask for a conference that’s more advanced than all of that would be to truly exclude folks who are coming to learn.
There’s got to be two audiences - the highly experienced SEOs, who may pick up one or two gems during the sessions, but who are primarily there for networking, and those who come to learn, for which you have to provide a slightly more basic approach.
I’m with you that the content could be brought up a level, but I don’t know that it could ever be “high enough” to be truly valuable for someone like you (or me) and still get 1000 attendees.
I agree that the best thing about the conference was the opportunity to speak individually with experts and reps from the engines. (The food was good, too!)
Though I am a big fan of Rand and SEOMoz, I differ in regard to what was appropriate for this conference, especially since it was billed as advanced.
I guess there are probably 3 audiences:
1. There are people who go to learn something and do some networking. Those are experienced SEOs like Dave here.
2. There are people who are new to SEO or search marketing and
3. Then there are the experts, like Rand, who are either on a panel or there to network, or both.
The difference between 2 and 3 may seem small but it’s important. Established SEO experts have a network or experience that may preclude the need to pick up a couple gems at a conference like this. Experienced SEOs may have experience but could really use one of those gems to take things to the next level.
I think if the conference is billed as “advanced,” then the panelists should support that billing. The fact that there was only one track for organic search implied that it would be geared toward an advanced audience - you wouldn’t need to choose one session over another. At SES there are multiple tracks and skill levels, so you can split off if something is too advanced or too basic.
The burden is on the attendee to take that into account beforehand, evaluate their own level of knowledge. You either prepare as much as possible before the conference or you wait for a more general conference. A year ago, I would not have attended a conference billed as advanced because I knew I wasn’t ready.
Overall, though, it was a good and useful experience. It was nice to attend such a small search conference. It would have been nice if certain sessions were more detailed, but I’ll save the review for the SMX feedback form.
Thanks for the feedback, Dave. I depend on feedback to try and reshape and improve any show for the future. One of my favorite questions to attendees is often “what didn’t you like.”
I was exceptionally glad not to have examples at the Duplicate Content Summit. That was not the point of that session. As I explained, the point that summit was to come up with long-term solutions so that we don’t have to keep having sessions on duplicate content workarounds.
This was a hard concept to communicate, and I know people were disappointed that some were expecting to deal with specific issues rather than the issue as a whole. In retrospect, I would have prepped the search engines even better to come with a hitlist of things they were considering doing or changing or wanted feedback on rather than the short summaries of how they deal with duplicate content. I’d have also jumped into the audience directly and really worked them more into solution-mode.
In contrast, the Penalty Box Summit I think better helped everyone understand the goal — not to solve particular problems but improve the general state overall. Like I said at the show, if in six to nine months you suddenly get a tool that lets you look up any pages considered to be duplicates on your site, perhaps with ways to directly change them into “originating” documents, then perhaps you and others will look more kindly on the session.
I didn’t consider site clinics here because those have tended to be more for beginners, and this was designed for advanced people. I’ll keep it in mind.
Examples are generally provided in more beginning to intermediate sessions, which wasn’t the focus here. In generally, however, speakers are always advised to use examples where appropriate. That’s part of the speaking guidelines all speakers get. I think your suggestion for this comes off your disappointment over the duplicate content session and as I said, examples weren’t the goal there.
As for speakers rushing through slides, they don’t have to rush unless they’ve not timed themselves right. Rand knew exactly how much time he had. He just wanted to show more, which I completely understand. You also have to remember while you might feel you know all this stuff from reading his blog, not everyone in the audience is the same. In fact, many attendees felt this session opened their eyes to stuff they never realized even as advanced marketers. And this was a case where I though advanced marketers needed a fast eye opening, then they’ve got our SMX Social Media event for a two day drill down for even more help. I could have shoved in more time on social media, I supposed — but that would have turned the advanced event into something else.
Danny,
Overall I have to give you a lot of credit for pulling off another great show and I will be attending more of them.
I really didn’t want this post I did at the airport to come off too negative - perhaps now that I re-read it - it might seem that way.
When the conference was over and I was waiting in the parking lot I had this sense that I was just part of something special. So I give you a lot credit for that.
I hope my comments can help you a little bit for the next conference.
I just spoke with 5-6 people about the sessions not being advanced enough - so I don’t know what the other 500 people thought - so you could be totally right. Perhaps the 5-6 people are very similar to me and others are at a different level than us. So please just take this post with a grain of salt.
Dave
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I had a great time. (Apart from Northwest Airlines sending me from Gatwick > Detroit (STORM) > Cleveland > Detroit > MEMPHIS? > Seattle.)
Rand and Jeff - I don’t accept the premise that there was a need to talk to non-experts in the room. The whole point of the conference was that non-experts were not in the room! It was - after all SMX ADVANCED.
That said, I also don’t think that raising the level of the content is going to be easy next time round. In a room full of experts, though, there must be a formula that will get the best out of the audience communicated back to the audience.
How might that be achieved?
Dixon.
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