A few a weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending SMX East 2012 in NYC. My company sent me on a trip with my director in hopes that we could learn something new that would take our marketing to the next level.
I was hyped for the conference and had my laptop already to take notes and meet new people and learn some new strategies. But when I got there I was a little taken back by what I learned.
What I Learned from the Conference
On the first day I really wasn’t expecting much as I figured it was the normal meet and greet and learn you way around. However as the days went on I started to see a trend in the conference. Most of what I was learning I already knew.
Yeah you can call it weird, strange, I knew too much or old things still worked. Well I would say that it’s a combination of them all mixed with sales pitches. The biggest of them all was that most of the people at the conference were newbies.
While in a Google training session one of the speakers asked us all to raise our hands. Then as he said years of experience we had to put our hands down. At the end only few of us had 5 or more years of experience. I was shocked and felt like I had so much I needed to learn but here I am one of the more experienced people in the room.
My Expectations for the SMX
Well what I got out of the conference and my expectations were just completely off track. You see I want to the conference hoping to find so many new and improve ways to make our marketing better. Didn’t really happen!
The reason this didn’t happen was because I already follow some of the top sites and blogs on SEO and digital marketing such as: SEOmoz, Searchengineland, Point Blank SEO, SEO Book and many more.
Most of the same people I already follow were the same ones presenting at the conference. What I learned was that people are there to help you with the basics and well the basics aren’t what I personally need.
Can’t Blame the Speakers
Though the conference wasn’t what I truly needed, though I did learn one or two tips to make the trip more then worthwhile I can’t blame the speakers. Why you ask? Well look at it this way, most of the speakers own companies and need business.
Are you really going to give away your advantage to everyone else? Do you want everyone to know what you know or are you going to keep that to yourself to make you and your services that much more valuable.
Yeah for those who are experienced it kinda of sucked! That’s me putting it lightly, but for those with just 1 to 2 years of experience I am sure that this was more then they expected an even more.
SMX East 2013 and Beyond
This brings me to Search Marketing Expo for the years to come. No I am not in charge and no one asked me my two cents but here they are anyways. I would suggest that things be more defined.
I mean yes they did have things broken into levels like beginner, novice, advice etc but even advance was a little watered down if you asked me. Maybe there should actually be two SMX East Conferences one that is set up the way it was this year and another the it really more advanced but you pay more.
To say it in the least more advance needs to be well MORE ADVANCED! Don’t get me wrong if given the opportunity I would definitely go again because the 1 or 2 things I did learn have surely help but it was like finding a needle in a haystack.
There were several things going on at the same time which meant I had to choose one and possible missing out on important information in the other. You have no idea which presentation will have those gems.
State up front whether the speaker is going over old techniques, new ones or forward thinking approaches. I guess I am asking them to think like they were giving presentation for information as if they we in my shoes.
I am still looking at going to the SMX East in 2013 but hopefully my experience will be a little better. I also want to check out MOZconn and several others.
Readers have you ever had expectations of something and didn’t quite get what you were expecting? What did you attribute your disappoint too? Was it the high expectations you had or did it just not live up to the hype?
I have definitely been disappointed in times past. What I have learned is to not set expectations with anything. You end up a lot less frustrated and more happy.
Hey Miss T! Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment. I guess you make a really valid point about not setting expectations and feeling it out. Sadly I usually don’t but this time I did.
I have been to many vision conferences. Some have been exceptional and some have been rather disappointing. Usually, it is because of limited choices in topics. Bigger conferences tend to work better for my tastes.
Kim thanks for visiting my blog. I am starting to think that maybe I just shouldn’t get my hopes up. I found that there were a lot of choices actually maybe too many going on at once. Sometimes there were 3 topics I really wanted to sit in but they were at the same time.
Sorry, the conference wasn’t what you were expecting. At least you got a little out of it. Hope you have a better experience next year.
Thanks Andy! Something is better then nothing and well sometimes 1-2 things can make a big difference. I tweek here and there and who knows. I will be making it to a few conferences next year so I will compare.