Blitz Trip to SMX Advanced Networking in Seattle

Yesterday a buddy and I took a blitz trip up to Seattle to take in the networking functions at SMX Advanced in Seattle.  Due to family commitments (Soccer game on Sunday and daughter’s band concert on Tuesday) I couldn’t make it for the entire conference but given that I live four and a half hours from Seattle it seemed rude not to drop by and see some friends who were among the attendees, exhibitors and speakers. 

SMX Advanced is the first conference put on by SearchEngineLand’s Danny Sullivan since he left Incisive where he ran the Search Engine Strategies Conferences.  It would have been fun to compare the sessions at SMX Advanced to those I’ve been to at WebmasterWorld’s PubCon and Search Engine Strategies conferences but maybe I’ll be able to do that at SMX Local & Mobile in Denver, CO the first of October.

I got into Seattle in time to check into my hotel and still make it a few minutes early to the Yahoo sponsored networking reception in the expo area.  The reception ran from 5:45-7:00 pm and then there was a break in the action which allowed people to grab some dinner.  I ended up tagging along with Dixon Jones ”Receptional“, John Coronella, Jessica Bowman and Thomas Bindl “ThomasB” to a nice French restaurant and then it was back for the Google Dance NW party which started at 9:00 pm.  I was able to see several more of my favorite conference attendees during Google Dance, Stuntdubl, eWhisper, the Beyond Ink gang, WebGuerilla, Oilman, cshel and Dave R. It’s hard to believe how quickly several hours can pass when you have good folk to catch up with! The schedule said the party would run from 9:00 pm to “late” which ended up being about 1:00 am when the last of us wandered off. 

SMX Advanced sold out and if what I heard was correct they had capped the event at 400 attendees.  That’s a smaller conference than many of the Search/Marketing conferences and I’ll be interested to see if SMX events continue to be designed for a smaller group experience than the SES ones that Danny has been associated with in the past.  I talked with several people about their impression of the information they had received in the sessions so far and the reaction was pretty positive overall.  I’m sure there will be a lot of blogging about the conference going on in the next few days so there should be some good first-person accounts out soon.  As for my impression of the networking events I had a great time.  That had more to do with meeting new people and seeing old friends than anything else but that’s the case no matter what networking event you attend.  There was some mild grumbling when Google stopped picking up the tab for cocktails a couple of hours into their sponsored party but at least they didn’t run out of drinks like they did a few years back at the SES San Jose Google Dance.  hehe  I’ll put up a couple more pics tomorrow but for now I’ll offer up this photo of party induced frivolity.  Darin (SEGuru from WebmasterRadio.fm), Dax, Barbara (SEOWife.com) and Scott mug it up for the camera.