We’ve all missed The Lisa’s blogging ever since she made her move back to the East Coast, but now our fix for Lisa Barone’s incredible conference coverage and wrap ups can be filled as she is now blogging at the brand spanking new WeBuildPages.com blog. One of Lisa’s first posts is the conference coverage of ScarySEO, an intimate SEO mini-conference which was just held over the weekend at Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Sporting somewhat of a Halloween theme, ScarySEO marks the first of many small conferences which will be launched by the team behind IMBroadcast.com (SEJ and Search and Social) and will feature an alternative format of round table discussions, Q&A sessions, workshop style website help and NDA sessions which consist only of information which will be shared at the events.
From Lisa’s post, The ScarySEO Mini-Con Recap :
One of my biggest complaints about some of the larger industry shows is that too many of the speakers are on Rock Star Autopilot. At the smaller shows, the attendees are the stars. Egos are left at the door and everyone shows up with one goal in mind: To leave smarter.
The most impressive part of ScarySEO was the high level of interaction between speakers and attendees. My favorite session was on SEO Project Management and Educating Clients where speakers Pamela Lund, John Carcutt, and Chris Hart really took the time to speak with (not at) the audience. They didn’t just rattle off a cold Powerpoint presentation, but instead gave folks actionable takeaways, stuff they could immediately work on to make their company better and to increase ROI. The presentations were great (especially Pam’s!), but the true strength of this session came when they were finished presenting and were simply talking with the audience. It was a big group think led by the speakers and moderator Dave Snyder. I’m not sure if it was because the session was happening late on the second day or if drinks started early, but the attendees were especially vocal, jumping into the conversation and adding real insight and thought. And the speakers played off them. I was blown away by the level of some of the questions being asked and the willingness of the speakers to really go in depth and share knowledge. That’s something you just don’t see at a larger show. It brought life to the show and value to everyone.
Recommended Reading : Top 10 Funniest Things That Happened at ScarySEO