Search Engine Strategies San Jose – Day 0.5

A human body emits approximately 500BTUs of heat-energy at 98-degrees F., or 37-degrees C. Imagine what a room full of about 7000 people feels like in the intensity of a late summer California day. Welcome to SES San Jose.

Many of the smaller conference rooms have ample air conditioning but the larger rooms start to feel muggy fairly quickly. The minor discomfort is easy enough to ignore however as SES San Jose is one of the premier learning and skill sharing in the industry. With over 80 unique 1.25 hour sessions, there is a tremendous amount of good information to be had here. It’s Monday, the first day of the conference which, traditionally is scheduled to be a somewhat lighter day in order to give attendees and delegates a chance to get up to speed and adjust their bodies to “conference-time”.

This year however, the schedule is anything but light on the first day of the show. To kick off the conference, delegates had the option of a attending one of five seminars, each of which would be considered highly advanced at almost any other search marketing show. My choice was titled, “Death of the Dot-Mobi”, a look at design options for mobile search.

The panelists, Dhana Pawar, Cindy Krum, and Brian Wool, all agreed that the .mobi standard was no longer a necessity for mobile design. In many cases, the use of .mobi might pose unexpected problems with duplicate content and confused spiders and visitors. While we knew this would be a controversial panel, nobody expected the heckler who made a complete ass of himself only two minutes into the first speaker’s presentation. After moderator Rebecca Lieb shut him down, he stormed out the back door without listening to the rest of the presentations. (the same person has been busying himself being a jerk around anyone who will put up with him but that is a rant for another blog post). WebmasterRadio personality Cshel provided excellent “live-blog” coverage of this session at Search Engine Roundtable. There are currently five other sessions underway.
To beat the heat between sessions, experienced delegates congregate in the air conditioned lobby of the Fairmont Hotel where the gorgeous recessed bar provides several measures of liquid relief and unending opportunities for networking and business development.
Later this evening, the community will convene at a club called Agenda to attend a charity party for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the Children’s Hospital of Denver CO. Organized by acs, Best of the Web, WeBuild Pages, SureHits, Print Place and IMTNT, the charity parties are among the best networking and social events of any conference. According to one of the organizers (Stuntdubl), over $6000 has already been raised by this event and the actual party is still hours away.

SES San Jose is arguably the most important event in the search marketing calendar. Every day is jam-packed with information, action, parties and events. I am relatively lucky to have my session, the Net Neutrality debate scheduled for the final day. Before that, I have seven or eight sessions I wish to sit in on, the annual pilgrimage to the Googleplex, WebmasterRadio’s SearchBash, and innumerable meetings and conversations to look forward to. It is only half way through the first day and already I am exhausted. It is going to be a great show.  More soon…