We’re on a roll this week during SES San Jose 2008 with our next tip in a series of how to “Get the Most Out of Internet Marketing Conferences“. Previously a Vice President and Editor in Chief at ClickZ for 7 years, Rebecca Lieb serves as an Editorial Consultant to the ClickZ network as well as a public speaker on interactive marketing and advertising.
She’ll be keynoting the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) Summit this October. She can be found many places online including Twitter.
Get organized. Plan in advance. Make a conference calendar grid with all the sessions you want to attend, as well as the parties you’re going to. Set up meeting around all that stuff. Color code it, if you’re anal. Now that you have a perfectly framed agenda, rest assured portions of it will go straight to hell. Relax. Accept it. Spontaneity’s good. Go with the flow!
Break on through. If you do organic at work, go to a session on paid. And vice versa. This isn’t the office, it’s a conference. You’re supposed to expand your thinking and broaden your horizons. Leaving your comfort zone helps to achieve that. A lot.
Come with a Big Question and seek answers to it. This helps frame all that information you’re absorbing.
Ask questions at the sessions. You’re there to learn. But be reasonable with your expectations. They’re questions, not free consultations.
Did a speaker really impress you? Tell them! It’s a total ego-boost for them, and a great ice-breaker for you. A little flattery goes a long way toward greasing conversational (and informational) skids. You’ll get more information and insight about your own issues, and start meeting the “insiders.”
Don’t collect handouts and schwag (unless it’s really, really good schwag) until you’re heading back up to your room. Otherwise you’ll have to schlep it around all day and it won’t get any lighter.
There seems to be a theme here with planning ahead as does interacting with other delegates and speakers at the event. Excellent insight Rebecca.
Now our internet marketing conference tips journey takes us inside the head of the famous Robert Scoble, Managing Director of FastCompany.tv and blogger’s blogger, FriendFeeder, Twitter-er and so on.
Before Robert drops some of his big bomb marketing conference tips, why not beat him to the punch and share some of yours? Great idea, eh? Right there in the comments section below we have a form just for you. We promise, we won’t be sending out mousepads or mugs, er, ah maybe a mug, but likely something MUCH cooler from TopRank.
[…] Editorial Consultant to ClickZ and former Editor for the past 7 years. In addition to previously offering sage advice on getting more out of marketing conferences here on OMB, Rebecca works as a consultant, is writing […]