Yee hah, cowboy!

And so, after a brief sniffle and whinge at home with this darned – will not go away – cold, I found myself in the lone star state, last week.

It’s a while since I was last in Dallas. I mean I switch metal at DFW airport many times a year, but rarely get to stay over.

Considering my American base is in North Carolina and I know the temperatures there well enough, one may think that I would have known better than to arrive in Texas wearing an overcoat! After freezing temperatures in New York and Newcastle, I arrived to a sweltering 80 degrees.

There are some very unusual buildings in Dallas.

And some which are just darned big!

ad:tech Impact is a series of one day shows taking in the many cities the main show misses. And I’m speaking on behalf of SEMPO. Correct!

I was paired up for my sessions with Ron Belanger, from Yahoo! He and I have been passing each other in conference corridors for months now, and yet we’d never actually met until the afternoon before the show.

Ron has an agency background and was lured over to the dark side by Yahoo! last year. On the day that Google got hit for 90 million, I was delighted to bring up the subject of click fraud during our first session!

He smiled a smile at me in front of the audience, that said, “later, when no one is looking I’m going to poke you in the eye with sharp spiky things, Grehan!”

I have to say, Ron’s a great speaker and we gelled really well, considering we’d only just met.

We went out for lunch with IBMs Surf Aid crowd (too many to name them all). Ron is sitting at the front to the left and just over his shoulder, behind him, you can see a smiling Bryan Eisenberg.

All in all, it was a good day and there was some very positive feedback from the attendees. I bumped into Bill Kelm, who drops me the odd note about my ClickZ column. It was good to catch up with him in person.

One of the reasons I make a point of flagging up where I’ll be on my travels is so that I can get opportunities to meet readers in person.

Of course, the great man himself, Jim Sterne is presenting the keynote at each of the Impact events. Jim is my great, great friend and I love hanging with him at these events. He does say the funniest things!

Being in Dallas with a couple of spare hours, early evening, I took the opportunity to step back in time and visit the sixth floor museum at Dealey Plaza. Yes, this is where President John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

This is the Texas School Book Depositary, and the infamous sixth floor window is the one on the top right hand corner of the building looking at the side with the entrance. Over 80% of Americans believe that there is some form of conspiracy surrounding the killing of JFK.

I must have seen dozens and dozens of reports and documentaries (and movies) on the subject. And yet, it wasn’t until last week, when I physically stood by the window on the sixth floor and then visited the infamous “grassy knoll” that I started to have doubts.

Here’s the grassy knoll taken from the opposite side of the road (I even put a Police car in for effect… Well that was just good luck, nothing else, actually!)

And here’s a shot from the grassy knoll looking back at the corner window.

Somehow, to me, the grassy knoll thing just doesn’t feel right. What the heck would I know, though. But somehow, after standing close to the corner window inside the building… (The actual corner window is encased in glass with boxes arranged just as they were on the day. So it’s not possible for any visitors to physically stand at it and get the full view.)

Anyway, behind the wooden fence on the grassy knoll is the same scene as way back then. Some cars parked and some train box cars.

Of course, there’s a conspiracy museum too. But when I took a shot of it… The American flag mysteriously flew up and hid the conspiracy bit (Yes, even I have the theme to the Outer Limits playing in my head).

But me, being me, managed to eke out the most intellectual and sophisticated tourist attraction in Dallas.

Anyway, London today ready for “Lucrative Search Marketing” tomorrow. And then it’s off to China again on Wednesday.

And finally, from SES New York.

I’m home in the UK for the weekend before I head back to the States again, next week. The next few weeks include a lot of travelling from one side of the planet to the other. So I really needed to recharge my batteries to get ready for it.

I’ve written in my ClickZ column for Monday that, it was probably the biggest SES ever in New York last week. I wrote somewhere recently that, I’m a little unfair on New York and London, neither one of them being a favourite place of mine. Both do have saving grace at times though.

However, the major upside for me is that, in both places I have so many great friends.

The legendary internet marketer Larry Chase, is one of my closest buddies in New York. He used to have a great condo down South Street Seaport area, which is one of my favourite places to hang when in New York. Midtown is cool for tourists who want to do Broadway, Times Square and stuff, but it really can get a bit overbearing.

Larry moved out to his old stamping ground in Connecticut last year, where he’s just in the process of buying a fabulous new house. But he still comes down to town to meet me when I get in. And then we go back down to the Seaport area to what used to be his local watering hole, a bar called The Paris.

There’s also a great little restaurant which sits right under the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge called The Bridge Cafe. It’s one of those classic places you only know about if you’re a native. So I took my old colleague and great friend Andy Beal, along with Jim Banks and Larry himself, for a little nostalgic dinner on Wednesday night.

If I had a Martini, for every Martini I’ve had with Larry… Hehe 🙂

Later, we headed back Midtown to the conference hotel, The Hilton on Sixth Ave. Naturally, the bar was packed with conference speakers and delegates mixing together and discussing search. There’s a lot of camaraderie between SES speakers. And a lot of competition. Not about search – about drinking! I doubt if there’s a member of the hardcore group that hangs VERY late at the bar that I haven’t seen slip under the table at one time or another.

And funnily enough, with the industry being as it is, full of itinerants, it’s most often in American cities that I get have a beer with the UK search contingent. Here’s Graham Hansell whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with at a number of London conferences, catching up with my friend and former colleague, Heather Lloyd Martin (I know, I still forgot to put the red eye filter on!).

One of my favourite sessions at SES is the organic session. However, and I’m sure he does this intentionally, Danny ALWAYS puts us together for it at 9.00 in the morning. I’ve been on this panel since it first started in London, years ago. The regular team was me, Todd and Bruce for a while. And then we got fourth member of the team, Dave Naylor. Last week’s session was great fun with a lot of cross fire between the panellists, and the surprise arrival of a Banana during one of Dave’s responses to a question from the audience. No, please don’t ask!

It gets a bit heated between Dave and I when it comes to the San… Sand… Sandb… nah, still can’t get it out, issue. But we really are good pals. I have a lot of time for him. He’s very clever and always VERY funny. In fact, Dave is my closest SES neighbour living only about 60 miles away from me. He lives in a much posher area than I do in a very, very expensive house. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Jeeves has taken up a position there now that he’s been let go at Ask.

Here’s a blurry eyed Detlev Johnson (the usual session moderator), bright eyed, bushy tailed (and secreting a Banana about his person) Dave Naylor next to him followed by Todd Friesen and Bruce Clay.

And finally, another quick snap of the audience to give them something to link to!

Cold yuk!

I can’t seem to shake this cold off. It’s worse today than yesterday.

I struggled downstairs for my session this morning and then headed back to bed with a good supply of Theraflu.

The ballroom we were presenting in is known as the “cursed room” by all of the speakers. If anything can go wrong with a presentation – believe me it does in that room.

Debra had trouble just getting her presentation set up. Greg had his last slide go missing. And then the presentation from the next room was being transmitted over the PA in our room while Chris was speaking..

Definitely a ghost in the machine!

Still, I demonstrated a little bit of practical link building and asked the audience to give me a wave while I took a picture of them – with the sage advice that they should all then link to it!

Barry [RustyBrick] Shwartz.

I always look forward to bumping into Barry Schwartz [AKA Rusty Brick] when I’m in NYC. But we never ever get a chance to do dinner and catch-up.

However, this time I made a point of inviting him and Yisha, his beautiful wife-to-be for an intimate dinner. It would be me and Rebecca and him and Yisha. Anyway, I arrived at the restaurant with 18 people in tow, as usual. And what a night it was.

Here’s Barry and Yisha [Awwwww, so romantic!

It turns out that it was Kim Krause’s husbands birthday [Eric] and also Christine Churchill’s and Matt Bailey’s too (he couldn’t make it though).

I asked the restaurant manager if he could throw together something that looked like a birthday cake for them.

Here’s Kim and Eric.

And here’s Eric and Christine after a little “happy birthday to you” from the waiters.

Looking up the table you can see Jill Whalen and Kim and Kevin Newcomb and… the backs of various people’s heads!

Jim Banks pointed out that as I’m always behind the camera I’m rarely seen in these types of shots. So, here I am sitting next to my editor at ClickZ, Erin Brenner, who I met for the very first time last night (she’s nowhere near as scary at dinner as when she’s hunting me down for copy!

Meanwhile, back at the hotel we did partake in a little extra “one for the road. A surprisingly sober Bill Slawski looked as though he was ready to do the New York marathon.

And Chris Sherman listened very attentively to my sparkling conversation.

Back at Cafe Des Artistes.

I love my boss, Rebecca Lieb, at ClickZ. She’s a very close friend and we have a kind of traditional thing where we get together for brunch on Sundays at Cafe Des Artistes, just off Central Park. This time Joe and Kim were still around so they joined, as did my friend Anne Kennedy from Beyond Ink and my long time New York pal, Larry Chase.

The waiter took this shot, but I forgot to put the red eye filter on, so Rebecca and Larry look like they’re auditioning for a Steven King movie!

Chicken Tikka Massala.

There’s a story about me and Joe Morin drinking a London bar dry of it’s entire stock of ingredients for Mojitos. And then moving on to a wonderful Indian restaurant where Joe partook of his first Chicken Tikka Massala. Unfortunately, at some point during the proceedings he picked up a live green chile which was used as a little garnish decoration and popped it in his mouth. I never saw so much steam come from anyone’s ears in my life. And the sight of those bloodshot eyes will live with me forever.

Last Saturday night, I took us out to a wonderful Indian restaurant I know in Manhattan. Here’s me with Joe, Jim and Kim.

Blogging from my sick bed!

I’ve been carrying a porta-studio with me recently. My new audio blog is due to start soon. I have a huge number of interviews lined up for this week. But, I brought the most horrendous cold with me from the UK to New York, last week. I thought that, by the time the conference starts, it should be gone.

However, here I am in bed feeling like shit. And my first session is today. So I’ll drag myself downstairs for it later, wheezing, sneezing, coughing and spluttering.

The studio in my hotel room will have to remain empty today, I think.

I flew to the States with my great friend and colleague, Jim Banks. He and I will be working a lot together this year. His company is being acquired by mine, which gives us a great new base in London. Not only that, Jim spent 20 years working in Hong Kong, so he knows the territory pretty well there. We’ll be opening our China base in Hong Kong later this year.

At the weekend we did some touristy things as Jim doesn’t get into New York as often as I do. And we also got caught up with friends and colleagues.

I took him down to the South Street Seaport area. I love it down there. My pal Larry Chase used to live down there, so we’d hang quite a lot in that area. Here’s Jim at Pier 17 with Wall Street behind him.

And here at Ben Benson’s steak house with the biggest cut of prime rib I’ve ever seen. There were hoof marks on the plate!

And finally, Jim in Times Square. Because Jim doesn’t have his own blog, I let him borrow mine for this post!

Speaking and repeating at SES

Marshall (AKA WebMetricsGuru) posted a comment relating to the BMW story here.

He mentioned it may be a good topic to touch on at SES in New York in a couple of weeks. I think it’s an excellent subject, actually (big brand spam, that is).

I know that Detlev has been championing the cause, but I do have my own ideas on the subject matter too. And boy, wouldn’t it make a change from talking for another 90 minutes about the san… sand… no, I can’t spit it out!

Marshall also mentions that he’s seen me speak a couple of times at SES and it was basically just a repeat. This topic seems to come around from time-to-time when people, I presume, start coming to the conferences regularly.

So, for the sake of any second-timers at the upcoming SES in New York, I have a message.

***Don’t come back to the link basics session if you saw it at your first show***

This really is important as I don’t want anyone to waste time that could be otherwise better spent elsewhere.

The link basics session, is just that: basic. When you’ve seen it, you should never have to go back again.

Unless you didn’t get it first time. And I have to say, out of the zillions of times I’ve done that session with the “Moses” of link building, Eric Ward and the wonderfully eloquent Debra Mastaler, I’d find it hard to believe that you couldn’t get a firm, basic grasp of what linking is all about from that one session.

It’s kind of like Danny’s basics session. I know it gets updated, but generally it’s a primer for the rest of the show. And it’s very comprehensive so you really only need to see it once and then get stuck into the nitty-gritty. It doesn’t really change from show-to-show.

The whole point of those types of sessions, is that, the presentation remains the same, it’s the audience that changes.

As for any other sessions I do at SES, such as the organics session, they’re pure audience driven. And because that old san… sand… sandb… Nah, can’t get it out. Anyway, you know what I mean… Because that notion doesn’t seem likely to go away too soon, it’s the audience repeating – not me!

I’ll be adding the final additions to my speaking schedule at the end of this week. I think, for the first time, I’ll be heading down-under to meet up with some of my Australian buddies this year. I’ll let you know when the date is fixed.

About two weeks ago I mentioned to my wife that a favourite old pair of shoes of mine, had gone to meet the great cobbler in the sky. She has always believed that Italian footwear is the best in the world. And so she hatched the plot to take me to Milan, one of the style capitals of the world, to buy a new pair of shoes.

Now style is almost a middle name for my wife. In her heyday, very much a catwalk type. So how she managed to end up with someone more of a duck walk type, I’ll never know. Style is not something ever associated with me in the sartorial sense. For a person who has been wearing Levi’s and a T shirt since I was able to dress myself, practical/casual is closer to the mark. But, stylish? Nope!

And as my BCB (business-class belly) as my wife fondly refers to it, continues to grow, to the point where the only thing that fit me snugly in those Milan designer stores, was the actual cubicle in the changing room… Style and I grow ever further apart.

So, we had been recommended by a friend to visit a very fashionable shoe emporium in the Via Brera shopping area. It was shoe heaven. Nothing less.

I tried on a few pairs and eventually decided which I preferred. My final question, of course, being: “how much?”

It didn’t take me long to break this figure down to the unit price i.e. a pair of shoes being two units. With each unit at about $450 each, this was about the price I had been thinking of paying for two units. And much as I liked the shoes, the idea of wearing just one with two thick socks on my other foot, also seemed less than sartorially appealing.

I left the shop a little disappointed. But even I believe that $450 for a single shoe is expensive. After all, I’m not Fredrick Marckini!

So, my wife, being the top-to-toe kind of person she is, suggested that while in Milan, I should visit a top Italian crimper and have a change from my usual birds-nest look.

After just under 45 minutes of snipping with his renowned golden scissors, he looked at me in the mirror and raised an eyebrow waiting for a look of approval. It’s very nice, I said, not knowing, in all honesty, quite what to think.

I asked for the bill, glanced at it, looked at the top Italian crimper and asked him: “Do you have a brother who runs a shoe shop?”

And so, we left the metropolis and headed up into the mountains and the calmness and beauty that is Lake Como.

This is such a pretty place. The famous funicular railway takes you high into the mountains where there are breathtaking view back down onto the lake.

It’s a very steep ride and not for the feint hearted if you have a fear of heights. But the views of the snow-capped Alps was wonderful.

At the very base of the funicular is a restaurant aptly named Fenicular. Here we were able to sit outside on the piazza and enjoy the view over the lake with a wonderful lunch. The Salmon ravioli with saffron is a must.

I have to hand it to my wife, she certainly knows how to organize a surprise birthday trip.

So cheers and thanks, Tatjana!

Okay, that’s another birthday over. And at the age of 51, I guess that probably makes me the oldest SEO around. So let’s a have a little respect for one of the industry’s elder statesmen… and be sure to buy me a belated birthday drink at SES New York in a couple of weeks 🙂

Just quickly. I made a point of paying a visit to Milan’s famous Duomo Cathedral, on Sunday morning. It is the biggest and greatest late Gothic architecture in Italy. My UK pal Brian Turner and I, swapped some email recently about architecture, in particular Byzantine and Romanesque. So, as a favour I thought I’d take a couple of shots for him to have a peek at. And would you believe it… It’s completely hidden by scaffolding for maintenance work. No doubt to remove the 30 tons of crap that gets dropped on it every year by the local inhabitants (those are the Pigeons by the way – not the Italians).

Anyway, Brian, believe me when I tell you, it has a very much of a Gothic, Notre Dame, Paris, look about it.

And finally, one quick view of an unremarkable building with an absolutely remarkable history.

Standing behind that old fashioned tram is LaScala, one of the most famous opera venues in the world.

(Is it just me? Or has lunch-time now been replaced by blog-time?)

Happy birthday to me…

I fly thousands and thousands of miles every year. So the idea of taking a plane ride is pretty much just “work.”

However, there is one flight I always look forward to. And that’s the one that comes with my birthday. My wife has kind of tradition going where, each year, for my birthday, she takes me somewhere entirely different for dinner. But it’s always a surprise.

I never know where we’re going until we get to the airport check-in.

Last year, I ended up in beautiful Venice, Italy. It was fantastic because the carnival takes place in Venice at this time of the year. In fact, I took one of my favourite pics of last year when we were there. It’s a shot of the Grand Canal taken from the famous Rialto Bridge.

So… I wonder where I’m off to today?