Blogging Meetup Next Monday

The folks at Small Business Mavericks have created a Minnesota meetup group for area bloggers and those who want to know more about blogging, and have officially announced the first blast-off get-together in Plymouth on Monday, March 3.

I always enjoy these get-togethers, mainly because it gets you away from your computer where you can have fun talking to people w/ similar interests. Hopefully that huge group (ok, 3 of us) who attends “blogger hour” will be in attendance.

I might actually be in Rochester that day. If so, it looks like I’ll miss this first one but will definitely make future meetups.

A Closer Look at the Inaugural Houston Inline Marathon

This weekend I got a closer look to see how these inline marathons are put together and have the hugest respect to those who put them on!

Justin McMurtry did a fantastic job coordinating the inaugural Houston Inline Marathon from the registration, zoning auto traffic, cool pre-race expo at the Last Concert Cafe, and putting together a great race-day event, and more. This isn’t easy at all.

What I really liked is in addition to the pro racers, there were a number of Houston rec skaters, a couple of them were even on quads. Good times! Since we rec skaters started early, most of us got to finish the race, and watch and take pictures of the pro racers crossing the finish.

Kudos to Jeff Glaze and Jenifer Joseph of Premier Sports for the chip timing, and what you did for the event was great. It was cool to meet both of you! Equally cool was a brief, live impromptu microphone chat that Heather Lacayo gave me after the race! I felt giddy.

I hope to have a Flickr set up soon for the event, hopefully by Wednesday evening when I’m back in Mpls.

Nicole St. Martin will be happy and grossed out to know that Akhil, David Host, and myself ate some sweet calamari rings and tenticles tonight in Dallas.

Entering a Zvents Event

Last night I posted a random question on Facebook and noticed that Paul O’Brien from Zvents joined the “Local Search Central” group. I haven’t had a chance to use Zvents yet, but then thought of a quick trip coming up.

I’ll be in Houston and Dallas for a few reasons during the first week of November. In Houston, there’s an inline skating event that piqued my interest. My old, slowpoke self is all signed up, but it looks like this race is pretty “pro” heavy, meaning that I’ll be one of only a few not wearing a lycra skinsuit (this is a good thing, folks).

So, why not at least enter my own Zvents event to try to encourage local, Houston recreational skaters to sign up? Some thoughts on the user experience while entering the event…

It is that user friendly and a useful tool I can see suggesting for clients. It provides Google Maps, user reviews, other Houston events, and even nearby suggestions on where I can enjoy some food and drink during my short visit.

Uploading an image is initially tricky. It could be the user (me), although I wouldn’t mind seeing some spec requirements prior to the upload.

It provides tagging opportunities for keywords. I’d suggest using (and not abusing) it.

A very cool thing is they have partnerships with local online news outlets from the Denver Post, Boston.com, and the San Jose Mercury news that display Zvents. I was hoping that the Houston Chronicle would be a partner, and maybe they will some day. Hopefully the dailies in the Twin Cities area will partner up, too.

Anyone have some Zvents experiences? I’d like to hear. If the Houston Zvent helps registrations, I’ll make a quick post here, too.

Post also up at Search Engine Guide.

MIMA Summit - Another Successful Event

Kudos to all that gave effort to the 2007 MIMA Summit held yesterday. I thought last year’s Summit was a success, but it was noticably more packed this year. I heard from a couple people that attendance almost doubled.

A couple quick notes:

Bret Busse from Evantage gave a great 30-minute presentation to P.I.M.P. your analytics reports. The acronym is “Planning, Imagery, Messaging, and Presentation”. His analogy was parallel to MTV’s “Pimp My Ride”. The premise is to pimp the reports to tell a story that makes marketing directors actually excited, rather than just providing normal graphs and charts. I thought that Bret Mentioned the session might soon be available to MIMA members, although I could be wrong.

Jason Fried, founder of 37Signals presented what wound up being a somewhat controverial keynote. A main point of his was that productivity soared when you were separated from teammates, thus allowing you to get in a zone.

I see both sides of this. At my last job, I loved the in-house comradery and the fact that I could look over my cube and ask a question and get it answered, even if it disrupted my co-workers workflow. ;) At the same time, I did not like going in on Saturdays to “zone in” for six hours knowing that no one would interupt me.

An unoffical count showed twelve current FindLaw employees and seven ex-employees were in attendance. Good times had by all.

Just as important, happy hour after the event:

I was able to talk to many familiar faces and got to meet a few new people, too. There’s a good number of people I did not get to meet and hope to next time.

Ending note, everyone did receive a really cool schwag bag to take home including a PC camera.

MIMA Summit in Two Weeks

It’s time to be thinking (and registering) for the 2007 MIMA Summit coming up on Oct. 3. For those who don’t know, it’s a yearly interactive marketing event with keynotes, breakout sessions, and a happy hour at 5:00pm to top it off. It’s held at the Minneapolis Depot and is a full day of soaking up info from online video, mobile marketing, SEO, analytics, etc. for not a lot of money. National conferences like these will set you back well over a grand.

I’m looking forward to many of the sessions including the afternoon keynote from Jason Fried, founder of 37signals (use basecamp?). It might be hard to beat out last year’s afternoon keynote though. Any attendee of the 2006 Summit will remember Michelle Collins (from VH1’s Best Week Ever). I don’t even remember the subject of her keynote, but it was just freaking hilarious!

Nonetheless, the whole day is just packed with information to soak up. Hope to see you there!

More on the Interactive Local Media (ILM:07) Conference

In late July I posted about the Kelsey Group and Search Engine Strategies combining for this year’s Los Angeles’ Interactive Local Media conference in late November. Looks like we have more info.

Peter Krasilovsky from the Local Onliner has an initial list of 50+ speakers.

I say it’s a can’t-miss conference even though I again won’t be able to attend. Between a Texas mini-vaca earlier in the month, PTO, and justifying the money (due to the mini-vaca), I’ll be shooting for one in 2008.

If you’re in charge of a marketing budget and are interested in local search though, it’s definitely worth checking out.

The Kelsey Group & Search Engine Strategies (SES) Combine for the Interactive Local Media 2007 (ILM:07) Event

 
Local Search panels have increased in both quality and quantity at the SES events over the years. This year’s SMX Local event is poised to have a really good turnout, too.

One local search event I’ve always wanted to go to is the Interactive Local Media (ILM) conference, put on by the Kelsey Group. Well, this fall they’re teaming up with Search Engine Stratagies (SES) to present ILM:07.

In the search marketing world, ILM isn’t talked about nearly as much as SES or SMX, maybe because it involves a broader spectrum. You have Internet Yellow Pages reps touting stats, online newspaper execs wanting to boost their online presence, mainstream companies wanting to find out what, exactly, interactive local media has to offer, and even a few search marketers. It can take local search to a higher level. Here’s a list of 2006 attendees.

I see local user reviews being a hot topic (and debate).

What really intrigues me is conversations with so many different industries, getting different viewpoints, and absorbing so much information that you can come back to make your own decisions on what would work for your own company or clients. That, and being able to chat with the Kelsey Group folks.

I might be saving my pennies for this one.

High Rankings Seminar is Coming to Minneapolis

Jill Whalen and her High Rankings Seminar is coming to Minneapolis on March 15th and 16th. I highly recommend it for businesses who really want to learn more about search marketing.

She is bringing a fastastic crew with her, and feel free to check out the seminar information in more detail. They know their stuff, period.

I started dabbling in search marketing sometime in 2001. I thought I knew it all until coming across the High Rankings forum sometime in 2003, suddenly realizing that I didn’t know jack.

I then became involved in the forum, quickly learned that search marketing was about conversions and acquiring customers, and not just where your favorite phrase appears in Google. Before I knew it, Jill invited me as a guest to the December 2003 Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago. Way… cool. I can certainly thank her and her crew for successes that I’ve had.

This will actually be Jill’s second visit to Minneapolis as she presented to FindLaw in the Spring of 2005. Now she’s bringing a crew. I’m especially excited to meet copywriting expert Karon Thackston. I’ve known her for over three years, but have yet to meet her in person.

This crew simply takes the BS out of search marketing. They know search. They know user behavior. They know how real people use the Internet, and they know how to market toward them.

Two St. Paul Events - VISI and MIMA

November 02, 2006 brings us two events worth mentioning, and you can make both of them:

1): To celebrate the newly expanded VISI data center in St. Paul, they are offering an open house and educational sessions on winning strategies for the technological future. You can choose to attend two of four sessions, including a search engine optimization session from Lee Odden, President of TopRank online marketing.

VISI has hosted Localmn for almost three years now, and I can’t say enough good things about them. I look forward to meeting the people who make it tick.

Cost: Free with online RSVP
Registration Info:

2): MIMA is helping promote an event regarding the social web at the U of M’s St. Paul campus. Computer Science and Engineering Professor John Riedl will be discussing Google’s recent Acquisition of YouTube, the popularity of social networks, and even multiplayer online games.

Cost: 10 dollars
Registration Info:

VISI is offering both afternoon and early evening sessions, so you can catch that in the afternoon and the U of M social web presentation at 7:00pm.

Minnesota Interactive Marketing Summit 2006

On October 4, 2006, the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) is putting together its annual MIMA Summit. There are many reasons that large and small businesses alike will want to attend.

There will be 2 keynote addresses, including one with Michelle Collins, writer and blogger for VH1’s Best Week Ever, approximately 14 sessions, plus an open mic session, all on topics such as web analytics, site structure, online advertising, viral marketing, and consumer-generated media, just to name a few. Some recommended sessions are…

Brawny Academy: Paper Towels and Hollywood?
In late August, I blogged about the Brawny Academy campaign. It’s a very creative way (via online reality show) to put excitement in something so boring as a paper towel. This has turned out to be a great viral marketing campaign. Hey, I hate reality TV and I’m hooked! Chris Lawrence of Fallon will be presenting.

Site Architecture: Actionable or Afterthought?
Jake Baillie, President of TrueLocal, is a very well-known and respected speaker, and regularly presents at search marketing conferences across the country. He’ll be speaking on site architecture, search engine-friendly Web sites, common pitfalls, and how marketing and IT share responsibilities.

Consumer-Generated Media (CGM)
Andrew Eklund, CEO of Minneapolis-based Ciceron, will speak on CGM and how important the “average Joe” is regarding user-generated web content, and how to take advantage of it. Yup, they’re talking about you (online)!

Assembling Your Internet Marketing Toolbox
The session will include a few speakers, including MIMA member Ward Tongen (Wardo) from Medtronic on cool tips and tools you can use to take Internet marketing capabilities to the next level, and to amaze your peers and bosses.

The sessions above are just a few of many. Between these, there will be enough time for networking, schmoozing, food…

Did I mention the happy hour from 5:30 - 7:30?

MIMA Summit 2006 (in case you missed the link above)

Directions and registration information