But I Don’t Wear Glasses! #ThinkVisibility

Back from Leeds after attending the excellent Think Visibility conference. I’m still feeling a bit incoherent after the night before the conference went on a bit too long, resulting in me missing the first three sessions by the time I dragged myself out of my hotel bed! Thought I’d jot down some of the highlights while I’ve still got the buzz for the event.

Arrived in Leeds, spent 40 minutes arguing with my Sat Nav about one-way streets in Leeds while looking for the Light car park. While checking-in there was an almighty clatter behind me, turned round to see Dom (@thehodge) trying very hard not to piss himself as Al Carlton (@AlCarlton) had just walked into a glass table at shin height. It sounded bloody sore and I’m sure when he sobers up he’ll find some rather nice bruising .

Shortly after a group of 16 TV’ers met in the hotel bar before heading out for a meal. I’ve been going to affiliate events for quite a few years now, so it was kind of weird walking into a crowd and having to introduce myself. Thankfully everyone was very friendly and we were soon joined by Dave and Elaine so I was no longer the only dirty affiliate there! While hanging around here I first met Shaun Anderson (@Hobo_Web) a fellow Scot (who took about 5 minutes to work out I’m Scottish too) and an SEO, for some reason we hit it off straight away, possibly due to our shared nicotine habits.

We headed off to Wagamama’s as evidenced here – then onto the pre-conf venue, the Hog’s Head.

 

 

At the pub I talked some shit to Dave Naylor (@davenaylor) and Elaine (apologies to both!) , then met a few other TV’ers who’d turned up. For some reason I’m always surprised how many Scots are involved in t’interweb so it was great to meet up with Andrew (@andrewburnett) and Wiebke Burnett (@wiieb), Paul Steven (@NorthSouthMedia) and his business partner James (@ttsjames). Along with Shaun and our adopted Irish cousin, Alastair McDermott (@AMcDermott) we had a great few hours of chatting and drinking an awful lot. When the Hog’s Head closed, Shaun, Alastair and myself continued partying ’til the wee hours and none of us were entirely sure which particular “wee hour” we called it a night. All I can say was it was a legendary night out! OK, Wiebke isn’t a usual Scottish name, she is in fact German and Andrew is also half-Swiss,  but we were still the “Scottish” group!

So the day of the event, hmmm, well, I arrived just as Guy Redwood (@eyetracking) was giving his talk and I was still in the sobering-up process. I’m a bit gutted at missing some of the earlier speakers, hopefully I’ll catch Tim Nash, Chris Garrett (@chrisgarrett) and Al Carlton at the next event. 

Dave Naylor’s talk was really entertaining as well as being pretty informative, it was quite a relaxed structure with people piping up questions as he went along. Loads of good info that makes you think you never want to cross a good SEO (especially one with £15k to play with:) ). 

Tom Critchlow (@tomcritchlow) was the next session I went to, where he gave a great session on Reputation Management. A lot of it is fairly common-sense SEO and pulled in a few new ideas, but he put it together in a really interesting  and vibrant presentation, even for a certain audience member who was suffering the hangover from hell. Tom also takes the “Irony of the Day” award; while throwing around a few analogies in his presentation, the one that stuck with everyone was the Emergency Reputation Management technique of changing your name, suggesting a $50 Thai bride would do the trick. Thereafter he was known as the “Thai-Bride guy”.

After the afternoon break (where almost everyone else went for a swift pint), Patrick Altoft (@patrickaltoft) gave a talk on link building, pointing out where most people go wrong and breaking down links into three seperate categories. It was again really interesting and it was probably the session that struck most with me. I read somewhere today that it was Patrick’s first presentation, if so I’d never have guessed as he looked like he’d being doing it for years. Really good stuff.

Last up was Kieron (@kierondonoghue) who gave a great presentation on Affiliate Marketing, demonstrating a few examples of PPC and SEO that generated sales for him including some screen shots of commission stats that were for the eyes of attendees only. If you weren’t at this one make sure you’re at the next one! Kieron also finished his presentation with a few slides on affiliate success stories, with Elaine and Dave up first, then Holiday Watchdog which was very flattering. Telling everyone at the conference that I was buying the beers, not so good

After the event I headed back to the hotel for a quick nap, then off to dinner with Andrew and Weibke joining the affiliate mob of Kieron, Ray (@befuddle), Elaine, Dave and myself. Lovely Thai meal, although I’m sure we all ate far too much!

Back to the Hog’s Head where numbers had thinned since the end of the event and we spent a few hours chatting and drinking again (I was nursing a pint of Guinness for a very long time). Kieron sloped off very early too, but we’ll forgive him as his presentation was very good and he’s getting on a bit (Happy Birthday mate!). Around midnight we split into two groups, us sensible TV’ers heading back to the Radisson for a few quiet ones and the braver souls continuing the partying in Tiger Tiger.

So back to the hen-party infested hotel bar we squeezed into a corner at the back, and enjoyed another few hours of great chat. I once again failed in my quest as usual last man standing, but the thought of the next morning’s drive was enough to keep me sensible and I went off to bed around 3am.

While I am a bit gutted I missed some really good sessions, I made some really good friends while in Leeds, and the “legendary” pre-conf night was worth it. It was refreshing to be at an event where almost everyone was “new” to me, and I really enjoyed it. Dom, when you sober up mate, it was a great event, I can see it getting much bigger in the future, but don’t make it too big please!

Last thing, my post title… Paul Steven’s business partner James isn’t really into the web stuff, so when Paul was trying to convince him to come along, James remarked it’d be full of fat SEO’s wearing glasses. I was happy to correct him and let him know my eyesight is pretty near perfect!

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