PubCon Day 1 Recap & What Has Me Thinking

Yesterday was my very first day attending PubCon and to say the least – I was impressed. The talent that conducting the panels and speaking at the keynote was second to none, well expect for one gal – she was out of her league.

The day started out with a morning Keynote with Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh. He spoke on company culture and how focusing on improving the work place environment and finding people with similar core values can positively effect a company’s overall consumer experience. It was an insightful look at how culture can and will to continue be a very important part of successful company’s business models.

Then it was a borauge of panels, trains of people going to this way and that to get a good seat for the next panel, and loads of priceless information. The highlight of the panels, for me, listing to Bruce Clay speak on link and how no_follow attribute can effect the equity passed from one page to the next in the Top-Shelf SEO: Hot Topics and Trends panel and then in the How Do You Optimize For Universal and Personal Search? panel it was how Google is redefining what content is in video and images. Those sections already have me rethinking and planning change for a real estate website – debuting soon.

Then before the last panel I was planning on attending I received a text from Max that there was a TweetUp in the Keynote area stocked with free beer. With my mind be a pile of mush, I headed downstairs to get a free buzz on.

Instead of just being a booze fest, Max and I sat down and talked with the Search Marketer for Netflix. Pretty cool if you ask me and it is always interesting to talk with people from larger companies and how search is driving them to adapt, change and stay ahead of the competition. Then to it was back to TI to clean up and make the SEOMoz party hosted in the Wynn. Tons of great people here and not enough time to blog before the 10:15am panel kicks off.