Search Champs was a great experience, and I wanted to capture a few thoughts:
- The Microsoft employees that we interacted with are very passionate about making great services, and part of that is listening to criticism. They invited folks who were very likely to provide hard critical feedback, and they received plenty of very vocal feedback.
- If you put a bunch of geeks in a bar, the conversations can be pretty interesting. The evening after we all arrived, they took us all out to a bar in Seattle for a reception. It was weird to be shouting over the music, discussing technical details of this or that service. The next evening, it was the same story at the restaurant.
- Search Engine Optimizers (SEO’s) and Search Engine Marketers (SEM’s) are people too.
- Robert Scoble is NOT an edge case. Just ask him 😉 ( I was two seats over when this audio was taken ). As a corollary, Robert Scoble is a good sport.
- When they say to meet your driver at 7:00am, don’t wait until 7:02am to be in front of the hotel. I ended up taking a cab to the airport.
My brain is still full from the experience. I’ve got some thoughts on Live Labs, Expo, and MSN’s stance on privacy. Hopefully I’ll find some time to get those written out soon.
One Man Shouting 