Drifting off to sleep last night I knew it would be a weird morning when I woke but I had no idea exactly how weird it would be. I not expect the two pieces of news that greeted me when I logged on.

The first bit of news that slightly shocked my world comes from New York City. Incisive Media, the company which owns the Search Engine Strategies Conferences announced Kevin Ryan was being laterally shifted away from the programming of SES to chairing its advisory board. In his place, Stewart Quealy has been promoted to the position of VP of Content Development. Steward is now responsible for creating conference programming for all SES events including SES shows, webcasts and training courses. Assisting Stewart will be Marilyn Crafts who has been promoted to Stewart’s former position of Sr. Program Director. Kevin Ryan will continue to be a major player at SES. Kevin will continue as a public face of the conference series and will continue to speak, keynote, and lead the popular Orion Sessions. He is now chairman of the SES Advisory Board.

The second piece of news that shocked and amazed me was Lisa Barone’s announcement that she is stepping down as the head blogger of the SEO firm, Bruce Clay Inc, effective immediately. Over the past three years, Lisa has been a constant voice for industry ethics and one of the most prominent bloggers in the search marketing industry. Word for word, she is also one of the best writers in a highly talented field. Lisa’s focus and wit will be missed through-out the industry. She is moving to an undisclosed position on the East Coast.

As the day wears on, I have a feeling there is going to be even more stunning news to come. A quick glance at the revamped Wall St. Journal, (congrats to the W.S.J. Online’s lead SEO Alex Bennert for pushing great changes, btw…), says it is going to be a more than interesting afternoon.