Escaping TopRank Winter for San Diego, London, Barcelona & Austin

Beautiful sunrise Lake Minnetonka. But COLD!

One of the greatest things about a good old fashioned, cold and snowy Winter in Minnesota is leaving for a few weeks to warmer weather. Add to that the opportunity to spend time meeting smart online marketers from around the world and it’s an even better season.

The next 30 days will be a whirlwind with speaking events in San Diego, London, Barcelona and Austin Texas.  Interestingly, one of the events I’ll be speaking at put up a video of me from about 5 years ago (03/06 Seminar in Minneapolis) as a preview.  The funny thing about the video is that the topics I discussed haven’t really “gone out of style” in the past 5 years:  Blogs, Social Media, Press Release SEO, Content Marketing.

If you’ve been reading Online Marketing Blog and like the kind of Social Media, Content & SEO insights shared here, then hopefully you’ll be able to connect with one of the upcoming events where I’ll be presenting on 2011 versions of these same types of topics.  Here are the dates and locations. I hope to see you there!

Feb 10 – SES Accelerator, San Diego
Downtown Westin – Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego, CA
This is a one day event from SES offering advanced topics on a range of online marketing topics as part of the Annual OMS conference. At 3:30pm I’ll be giving a solo presentation on Content Marketing Strategy. Looking forward to some sunny California as long as I can get out of the convention center.

Feb 23-25 – SES London
The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre – Broad Sanctuary, London
It’s been 2 years since I’ve presented at SES London and this time I’ll be giving a solo presentation on Content Marketing & Optimisation on the 23rd at 11am. Then I’ll be moderating a SEO Through Blog & Feeds panel at  12:45pm on the 24th. On OMS Day, the 25th, I’ll be giving a solo presentation on Integrated Online Marketing: Search, Social & PR at 10:15am. Granted, London isn’t exactly warm this time of year, but it’s got to be milder than Minnesota.

Mar 2 – Search Congress, Barcelona
Hotel Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain
A trip to Spain! How could I resist? At this event I’ll be speaking with Aaron Kahlow, Founder of OMS about Online PR. When Search Meets Social: How to Raise the Tide Combing Social Media and SEO at 1:30pm. The event site is all in Spanish and I don’t speak Spanish either. We’ll see how it goes 🙂

March 11 – TECHmunch Austin
Whole Foods Culinary Center – Austin, TX
I’ve been attending SXSW for about 4 years now with no intention of submitting to the secret handshake club for speaking. After doing a panel at BlogWorld with TECHmunch, Babette Pepaj asked if I’d be interested in doing a TECHmunch during SXSW. This is one heck of an event with the likes of Brian Solis, Sarah Evans, Eric Schwartzman, Erik Deutsch, Ben Huh and many other impressive digital people (LA Times, CNN, Cooking Chanel, CBS,  Current TV) I haven’t met yet. Of course I said yes – hanging out with Foodies is definitely my style. I’ll be talking solo again on some combination of Social, SEO and Content.

If you’re attending any of these events or covering them as a blogger, I’d love to meet you! Please say hello.  Bloggers be sure to leave your card or ping me if you liveblog one of the presentations so I can link back to you from a roundup post.

As you can probably tell, I’m making an effort to mix up the standard search conferences with something different. I’ve found that expanding beyond the SEM industry into other areas over the past few years has allowed me to meet some amazing people that have resulted in great friendships, new business and a lot of learning.