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Having gone down the rabbit hole last night as well, I wasn’t surprised the first session was a bit of a snoozer in terms of attendance. Even with a promising session title: “Igniting Viral Campaigns: From Links to Generated Content”, the absenteeism was sharply felt, just like the fricking cold air cutting through the entire venue. Good thing I picked up an “I’m with Stupid” Shirt from StupidSEO.com to keep from slipping into hypothermia.Back to the viral campaign session… the jury is still out on this one. I can’t decide if the session content wasn’t interesting enough, if the speakers weren’t engaging or if I just wasn’t that into it. Unexpectedly, they saved the best for last and one panelist stood out. Brian Ellefritz’s melodic vernacular recounted a humble story of Cisco’s first attempt at a viral campaign. Humorous errors and best practices were shared. Snapped me back into optimism and looking forward to getting some sun before the next session. Brrr….

Next stop: Search on a Dime. What an enlightening session! The moderator, Jennifer Evans Laycock, transitioned astutely between speakers with pertinent questions. Clear and concise presentations with well spoken speakers that are comfortable with their material were exactly what I was expecting.

Stoney deGeyter kicked it off with the low-down on all things organic. Search, of course. David Mihm followed suit with some key local search tools and tips. Matt van Wagner rounded off the session with a delicious case study about a local pastry shop’s entrance into paid search.

I left this session with a lot more SES confidence and a long list of resources such as ebooks, links, and checklists. Wow, these guys did a better job advocating for Google than the Googlers (keynote, Secrets Revealed, Science Fair) themselves.

Speaking of which, the case and point was the keynote speech by Google’s Business Product Management Director, Nicholas Fox. Sitting at a round table and gazing up towards the stage brought back memories of sitting uncomfortably at a wedding and listening to an awkward best man speech. The only difference is that you can walk out during the keynote, which many people seemed to take advantage of that fact.

The next session I attended was the Google Analytics and Website Optimizer: Secrets Revealed. A tightly packed session but I think this one is better described by Garry. His expertise should really be the judge of whether there were really any secrets revealed. From a newbie’s perspective I felt like I was sitting in a sales pitch not unlike Omniture’s MO.

The day wraps up with The Findability Formula: The Easy, Non-Technical Approach to SEM. Found another beginner track gem! Heather Lutze is high energy and a great speaker, I feel like she’s the quintessential Oprah guest, if only Oprah was an advocate of Search Engine Marketing. Her presentation was focused and action oriented. The only blemish to the presentation was the catty moderator who felt she had to add value by contradicting the presenter.  Awkward.

The conclusion of this session also brings my chatter to a close. I would like to wish Garry a bittersweet good luck and to sincerely thank him for allowing me to add my 2 cents, not to mention setting me up on a “Raised Eyebrow Acknowledgement” basis with Avinash. So good luck buddy and thanks for having me as I disappear into the stillness of the San Jose Westfield Valley Fair mall.