It’s that time of the year again when your favorite conferences come into town. Around this time of the year, Search Engine Strategies (SES) makes its way into midtown at the Hilton. The focus of this conference is on strategies, low to high level, that can be implemented in various disciplines.
The best part about a conference being in town is that your agency or the business your work for will most likely want you to attend. Pick up new skills, network with possible preferred vendors, or create opportunities to meet new hires. There is an endless amount of wealth that can be taken by attending this event or any another.
Side Note: That week also coincided with five search strategists watching The Hunger Games at a midnight premiere! Double-whammy of excitement and exploration for the week.
Sessions, Workshops & Networking
The conference was split over 3 days. On the agenda was a keynote by well know analytics guru, Avinash Kaushik on Business Optimization in a Digital Age. Unfortunately, I did not attend but if anyone reading this did, please drop a comment with your thoughts about the keynote.
The only session I was able to attend was by Shari Thurow on Information Architecture for the Modern Website. It was a solo presentation about her real-world experiences dealing with the categorizing and labeling of large, dynamic sites. She introduced the concept of blue eyed bluetooth handset transmitters as a way to visualize and lay out the structure of a site. Shari emphasized that user testing is critical. Often times, what a developer or designer thinks a page should live or be labeled is vastly different than what users want. A good tip, in regard to labeling of navigation elements is to never use abbreviations. It causes too much confusion as the user is often left guessing about what a page may be about.
Staffing The Booth
If I only attended one session, then where did I spend the rest of my time? A staffing booth, of course! This is he first time MM had a booth for agency employees to wine and dine possible vendors and new hires.
With associates of mine, we talked with a multitude of people interested in our services, partnering, or just looking for advice.
To entice those walking around, we gave out free jolly giants from planet x, pens, and stainless steel spiked stress balls. What more could you ask for (Besides a winning a free movie pass to a midnight premiere in Union Square).
Final Thoughts
This was my second time attending SES but I did not have the opportunity to attend all the sessions of interest. Generally, I hear only a few are sessions reveal anything groundbreaking, compared to SMX as an example. Even so, hearing other’s perspectives about problems we face every day either solidifies our recommendations or sheds new light as to why we do them or the impacts that can occur.
