My favorite part of working at a Search Engine Strategies Conference is writing about the sights and sounds later. My experience is different from many of the stories told because I don’t attend private parties or stay out all night drinking (the proper term for both is “professional networking”, of course.)

I feel I’m there to give something back to an industry where I started out as a single mom with two small children, sacrificing my dignity during the daytime for a company whose CEO felt that webmasters were “worth $5 an hour”, and freelancing in SEO or teaching myself new skills at night while my children slept.

Twelve years later, I get the biggest thrill from reporting on sessions for those who can’t get to the conferences; because for years and years, neither could I.

Tuesday

Though the conference began Monday, I arrived Tuesday evening, around 8:30pm with my husband Eric, who fills many roles. I have trouble seeing distances, even with correction, and he is my “guide person”. He is also very smart and appropriately “geeky”, works in a field related to mine and is becoming more involved in my work because he is very experienced with automation, recording tools and software testing. He also knows many SEO’s and they like to see him.

We live less than a 2 hour drive from New York city but ran into massive traffic tie-ups a few blocks to the hotel (some movie premiere I later heard). We were supposed to meet a group of friends for dinner, including my good friend, Bill Slawksi. Though we missed the dinner gathering, we caught up with him later at the bar, where we were catching up with all kinds of folks, including these three top Women in SEO - Deb, Christine and Jill.

Bill left for home later that night, taking a late train.

That night, I finally met:

Michael Gray (aka “Graywolf”). The picture includes Chris Sherman, who took the time to explain to me why my blog is not on SearchEngineLand’s blogroll. It wasn’t easy for me to inquire and I appreciated his information.

I recognized Todd Malicoat sitting at a table with Mike Gray, so I went over to say hello to Todd, and then goofily made my way to Mike, completely ignoring the woman sitting next to him, because I really wanted to meet Mike (and I was totally focused on that.) The woman tapped my arm and asked if I knew who SHE was, and thank gawd, I realized it was Rae Hoffman, a legend in her own right. I thought she was a blond. Anyway, meeting Rae was funny and a long time in coming. She took several SEO women out to dinner on Thursday night, so you may hear about that event at some point. I saw them when they returned from their road trip, and all ladies were feeling very well, suffice it to say.

Liana Evans wowed everybody with her “new” hair. (I’m looking for a good picture of it when it was down, rather than pulled up.) Christine Churchill told me Li looked like Drew Barrymore. Li and her co-worker, Greg Meyers work for a company located not far from where I live. Li lives about 30 minutes from me, which means both of us get to joke about living near a big nuclear power plant, which may or may not explain a few things about us…I digress.

I was sitting next to Tamar (photo of her and Jeremy “Shoemoney” Shoemaker, whose body was taken over by demons - note the eyes) in the press room, when she says to me, “Do you think I should take a picture of Danny?”

Danny Sullivan was finishing up with a Webpronews interview session at the table behind us. I mumbled (ie. whined), more to myself than Tamar, that the last time I took a photo of Mr. Sullivan, my flash nearly blinded him and he got mad. He didn’t know it was me, but nevertheless, I’ve always felt badly and swore from that moment on I’d never take his picture and would try to melt into the woodwork if I were to ever be near him again. I said something to Tamar about she could do it, but I wouldn’t be taking the chance again.

This picture of Danny Sullivan and Rand Fishkin is the result of Tamar not listening to me. Turned out quite well, I think.

Also met:

Nathan Weinberg for the first time. I love his hair.

Sessions I covered for SearchEngineRoundTable:

Converting Visitors Into Buyers
Successful Site Architecture
Social Search Overview
Search Behavior Research Update
Shopping Search Tactics
Usability and SEO
CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines

Listened in on, but Liana Evans reported on:
Web Analytics & Measuring Succes

In Part Two, I get to do more than just smile at Lee Odden, Lisa meets Danny for the first time, I sacrifice my hair for a good cause and just miss meeting a famous fiance.

In Part Three, I chat with another Mike, re-meet Chris, and we get stuck at the Lincoln Tunnel.

Stumble it!