Industry Conferences - To go or not to go?

[izopod]

I was looking at the AD:Tech05 conference schedule:

http://www.ad-tech.com/sessions_byDay.asp?SubEvent=17

....and I got to thinking. There has to be a lifetime of information packed into that schedule, why on earth am I missing it? Well for starters I didn't know about it until just yesterday as I was reading a blog. The CEO of the company was letting everyone know he had a booth for the week. The other reason of course is "Money". We are expecting our first child in November so all "extra's" are going to make this "transition" as smooth as possible.

So essentially it comes down to information (knowing the conference is going to take place) and money. Two very BAD excuses for someone who probably needs this information being discussed at the AD Tech conference more than those people who will attend.

The difference fellow domainers between attending a industry conference or not is really all about which side of the fence we will be on. Everything being discussed at the AD Tech conference appears to be information that you probably could get off the internet "in time"...but as we all know, life cycles on the internet are short. The reason for that is because of global competition. The more people going after the same pot tends to speed innovation, and ROI up quite a bit.

Moral of the story: We cannot "afford" to keep missing these conferences. Domainers tend not to come from affluent backgrounds, but we are not without resources. We just need to get the "big picture": Information being discussed at these events tend to give those who attend a huge advantage.

 

[Ed30]

I agree. I think if you have the time and the costs are not too prohibitive then it is well worth while going to these events. Unfortunately, living in the UK makes these too expensive and time consuming for me.

PS - Good luck with the new baby in Nov. Catch up with your sleep in the meantime :-D

 

[GeorgeK]

It would be nice if they all put out DVDs, or written transcripts of the events.

 

[izopod]

PS - Good luck with the new baby in Nov. Catch up with your sleep in the meantime :-D

Thankfully I do not require a lot of sleep. The most I probably get a nite is about 4 hours...

note: I do hear you on the prohibitive costs, especially being from the UK. Maybe it's time these event organizers start "thinking outside the box". I wonder if it's feasible for them to set up a "pay per view" deal where you could download streaming audio from the sessions that interested you. That way anyone from anywhere in the world could benefit from such a worthwhile conference such as AD:Tech 05.

Methinks, they make it exclusive so as not to give away all the "secrets". In time I truly believe there will be a "caste" system involved when ranking your sites. If you aren't using the latest SEO methods you might as well forget about it.... (yes, some of this is already happening, but not on the level it will be in a few years). I can see a day where you will need to prove to Google your site is worthwhile before being accepted in their search engine.

It would be nice if they all put out DVDs, or written transcripts of the events.

...or streaming audio on a pay-per-view basis (see above). I would prefer a dvd myself, and glady pay $xxx (low to mid) for a few of those sessions at the AD Tech Conference...

hmmm....

 

[gmac17]

Ad tech is much more "high level" - ie, a lot more advertising world people who work for agencies as oppossed to entrepreneurs as many of us are....it is enjoyable to go to, but nothing groundbreaking. I prefer SES, or (although I haven't been) webmaster world.