Online Marketing Blog

The first day here at ad:tech Chicago was pretty good. I covered 3 sessions over at Online Marketing Blog and at the ad:tech blog.

Link Building
Big Brands and Podcasting
Warm and Cozy SEO

Also, Carlen Lea Lesser covered: “Managing Ultra-Complex Search Campaigns”

In the morning I had the chance to briefly meet keynote speaker, Fay Ferguson and chat a bit with fellow ad:tech blogger David Berkowitz of 360i and contributor to Media Post Search Insider. I also had a most enjoyable conversation with Mickey Alam Kahn, Senior Editor of DMNews.

Later in the day I bumped into Dr. Amanda Watlington, my partner in crime on the DMA Search Engine Marketing Council blog and fellow speaker at the DMA06 Annual conference. We’ll be presenting with Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts about blogs, RSS and podcasts.

A shorn Greg Jarboe and I attended several sessions together in the morning. I should have taken a photo as Greg looks good in a crew cut and a short beard. Greg tells me SEO PR has something exciting in store in the next few weeks or months. I’m pretty sure I know what it is already, but I’ll let him tell me officially.

While working on translating my garbled notes from a session into a comprehensible blog post, I received a comment from Frank Gruber saying that we should connect here at the conference. I did not know he was attending. I replied that I was in the press room. Turns out, so was Frank! He’s here helping cover the conference for iMedia Connection. Frank walked over and we had a great talk about some of the exciting things he’s doing here in Chicago to connect web 2.0 companies and people.

I had a brief opportunity to walk the exhibit hall in the morning and then again at the end of the day when there was a party hosted by CIMA and BlueLithium. I had the chance to meet Don Knox, VP of ad:tech and it was interesting when we met that he recognized me from reading Online Marketing Blog. I think that’s pretty cool actually.

CIMA also sponsored a nice get together at Fulton’s on the River, which is a huge seafood restaurant. Lots of sushi and a huge spread of other delectables was available as well as abundant libations. There I had some very interesting conversations with companies big and small before heading back to my hotel.

Deciding not to eat anything at the CIMA event, I did decide to check out Don Shula’s restaurant in my Hotel before closing down for the day and had an excellent, but not wisely chosen due to the time of day, dinner. This kind of eating schedule blows away my “SEO is like weight loss” idea.

Day two of ad:tech Chicago for Online Marketing Blog will include a session on social media with P&G and MySpace and to hear Bryan Eisenberg talk about persuasion architecture and his new book, “Waiting for Your Cat to Bark.”

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