Today at the SMX conference, two sources that I trust told me independently that last week, the folks who run the Search Engine Strategies conference series, Incisive Media, were planning to institute a speaker exclusivity agreement following SES San Jose. This would mean that if you speak at SMX, you cannot be an SES speaker, and likewise, if SES gets you as a speaker, they'd require that you don't also speak for SMX. Obviously, there's some politics involved, but I think it's probably secondary to the business strategy on the part of Incisive, who doesn't want the increased competition form Danny's new SMX venture.
From a strategic standpoint, I understand their position, and I have lots of friends in the SES hierarchy, Tim Walsh (with whom I recently spent some great times with in China), among them. I hadn't heard this from him - just the opposite - that he felt the market had plenty of room for both conference series. Thus, I'm guessing the decision may come from someone who doesn't regularly attend or participate in the conferences. To that unknown individual (or group), I'd ask you to reconsider. I know I'm just a search blogger, and a speaker (so it's hard to say I don't have a proprietary interest), but my gut feeling is this will be a divisive move that hurts the industry and many personal relationships.
To the SEOmoz community, and to the wider search community, I pose this question - if you were Incisive, would you institute this rule? Do you think there's a strategic advantage there?
p.s. The Google Dance tonight was fantastic, and Ask's new SERPs (which debuted, at least to me, right outside the entrance - thanks Patrick - look terrific). This is an amazing conference for networking - possibly the best relationship forming and building that I've done at any single event. Lots more coverage is on its way!
UPDATE: Kevin Newcomb posted this below:
Hi Rand, I just spoke with Tim Walsh, and he assures me that this rumor is false. Incisive Media has no plans to institute a speaker exclusivity agreement for any of our conferences. Hope this clears things up,
Kevin Newcomb
News Editor, Search Engine Watch
Hi Rand,
I just spoke with Tim Walsh, and he assures me that this rumor is false. Incisive Media has no plans to institute a speaker exclusivity agreement for any of our conferences.
Hope this clears things up,
Kevin Newcomb
News Editor, Search Engine Watch
Hooray! Thanks, Kevin & many thanks to Tim. I know this was the way he wanted things, so I'm glad to hear it. A collective sigh of relief will surely be let out around the search marketing world.
Great job pointing this out and forcing a commitment. I agree with you on this issue, even though I have yet to attend a conference (I'm shooting for SES San Jose for my first!). I'd just hate to feel like I was missing out and not getting the best because some corp. thinker had "an idea" about something.
Thanks for making the search world a little safer, Rand.
To keep it short and sweet:
1. If you were Incisive, would you institute this rule? Do you think there's a strategic advantage there?
Yes, and yes. If you can get the biggest names, more people will want to come and see you. That's just common sense.
2. Do I, as a search marketing and general online marketing professional think this is a good idea?
No. It'll only serve to divide the community, in a way that I can't see helping the search marketing community. If they were really different, such as SES staying as it is, but SMX being more a series of lectures, that'd be fine. But it's not.
If you were a TopGun speaker... would you want to marry one of these groups? Of course not!
I agree completely. I used to be at a tradeshow service provider and know from many clients that good speakers are hard to come by, and conference organizers need speakers more than speakers need conference organizers. This may seem like a good strategic move, but I think the SES organizers would be shooting themselves in the foot.
Right! Without speakers there is no conference.
re: https://www.seroundtable.com/archives/013722.html
I remember being told that by Danny at one point (the "same presentation within 2 weeks clause) but that's very different from the current rumour of it's either SES or not.
And as I recall he hasn't telling me to not speak at the time, he was dispelling the rumour that SES was exclusive or was planning on it. I also remember that it was more of a courtesy/quality issue than anything else.
No, if you want to steal speakers, you don't do it with a legal clause. You do it by slowly overlapping your conference dates with your target opponent and force the speakers to choose between them.
But it's a dangerous thing to do, unless you are certain they will pick yours, not the other guys.
Exclusivity via conflicting dates, not contracts.
Now, THAT is much more likely, to be honest.
Ian
Kinda like PubCon and SES Chicago this year. Ought to be interesting watching that shake out. Might provide interesting opportunities throughout the food chain...
(Frankly, given the choice of Vegas in December or Chicago in December, one of them certainly has a more appealing climate!)
So I will see you in Chicago?
In the end, it seems like anything that divides up a community and takes away from the greater good of that community, not only hurts the community but those who were seeking to gain advantage. You succeed by offering greater value and a better product, not by trying not to suck.
Hopefully just a rumor, otherwise, for their sake, hopefully it leaves them with the winning hand... lots of strategies sound great when you assume you hold the stronger position.
I can't help but notice this thread contains arguments against the institution of a rule that doesn't exist.
Why post something that is a rumor without also identifying these reliable sources? Isn't that just idle pot-stirring?
Early on in organizing SES Toronto, I was told there was going to be no exclusivity rule at all. Unfortunately some folks decided to merrily spread gossip to the contrary that frankly is misleading and potentially harmful. Fortunately, this kind of gossip affects potential attendees not a whit. It also failed to impede my ability to find the best lineup of speakers for an SES Toronto yet, including the good folks from SEOmoz.
If it were me personally, I wouldn't really honor such an exclusivity rule. There are personal connections and connections with attendees that trump economic competition. We are in a time (as I have tried to convey to all my friends in the biz) where there is some economic competition brewing that shouldn't cause any upset, because it's only about dollars, and there are enough about those for everyone. What should be of concern is anyone who allows that mere economic competition to turn into innuendo and the fabrication of personal rivalries that don't exist.
The best and the brightest in this business will remain so, and remain friends, long after the economic dust in the part of the business that involves speaking settles.
Rand, Ian, and friends, I'm glad you agreed to come speak in Toronto, it's always been a great show in large part to Chris's past efforts and of course, these things don't run themselves, due to the efforts of many members of the Incisive team.
The fact is - on the economic, and not personal, side - no one is running conferences purely for their health, though we all have a passion for it. If someone is spreading false rumors about a rival conference, it sounds to me like they're deliberately trying to hurt that other company. That's too bad, sounds like a dirty tactic to me.
Egol asked, " If you were a TopGun speaker... would you want to marry one of these groups? Of course not!"
If I was a "TopGun speaker", I'd go where ever I was paid the most for the speaking gig. When "Advanced" (supposedly secret or expert?) techniques can be leaked out in blog coverage for free, to anyone, the value of the speaker, in my mind, requires more respect and consideration.
I love how people talk about the "secret" stuff and how some gets told on blogs etc.
There is very little real secret stuff.... if people read the Webmaster Central info at Google and the similar stuff at Yahoo and MSN they would be a whole lot better informed.
So many times I talk with agency people etc. who have spent very little time reading all the help stuff that is available.
But if they are paying speakers I want a check too....
what's the secret to that one Kim?
With apologies to Rand for veering off the thread topic, you're hitting one of my long unanswered questions about the perspective of speakers and how they feel about their role, whom they are loyal to, why and what they get out of it (other than recognition.)
I don't understand any hint of competition between conferences other than who is going to make it worthwhile for the speaker, who may be giving out trade info to peers, potential clients who might have paid them to do the work, etc.
I'm not qualified to answer the questions because I am not a speaker.
This is speaking in general terms, fyi. Even if no rumor ever existed, the idea of who gets the best speakers would likely come up. These are businesses. Neither should be pissing off any speakers right now because both need to pull from the same pool.
So I'm curious as to what any conference setup (SEM or otherwise) does to retain "Top Guns".
Obviously a large number have their own agenda - agencies, engines, vendors....
The number of one of people from individual companies is few and far between.
Everyone thinks/thought I was my own agency... I work for a company and they send me to these evenst for the networking and to keep up with what is going on.
Five a year is alot but part is a reward for the work too.
"So I'm curious as to what any conference setup (SEM or otherwise) does to retain "Top Guns"."
If they want exclusive... then they should pay a "retainer" or give a percent of the gate.
Not to be conspiratorial, but if someone from either organization wanted to float this rumor and see what the industry response would be, they just got a very inexpensive focus group today.
I agree..... wait until PubCon and SES go head to head in December... Vegas or Chicago???
I know this was just a rumour (and I knew I could count on Tim and Kevin) but I'll pile on a few more reasons this would not fly, just in case someone else decides it might be a good idea:
1. Many speakers are not paid. They show up on their own dime. I can't imagine anyone working on a volunteer basis agreeing to a non-compete agreement. Ever. I'm not even sure there would be a legal justification for it.
2. Now, if they were paid, maybe. But it would still be a bad idea. Unless you offered the speaker the equivalent of what they make from speaking at all conferences, then you are basically trying to make them unemployed. Not a good way to treat your speakers, and any speaker who was any good would say no.
3. Given an equal chance to speak at several conferences, or just one, of course a competent speaker would choose several. The result would be that only the worst speakers would end up agreeing to this, assuming you could get any at all. So much for the competitive advantage, since the quality of the conference would suffer as a result.
This type of rumour has been going around for quite some time. I heard about it first regarding PubCon a couple of years ago ("Hey! if you speak at PubCon, you won't be allowed to speak at SES!", etc).
In the old days I would probably accuse someone of deliberately trying to make SES look bad for whatever reasons (and maybe it did start that way, or maybe someone at SES mused about it out loud one day - I don't know), but by this point I think it's more likely that either it's the same person making it up for every new conference, or it's now part of the popular culture of SEO's, and just self-resurrects itself every once in a while.
Even people you trust can have untrustworthy information.
Ian
Guess this one is determined to run its course....
anyone else have a view?
If they go this route it may be time for SEOMoz to start up a new search conference with open source speakers
Glad to hear that the rumors are false. Thanks Kevin.
Keep up the good work Rand.
Well it is a relief to hear that it was just a rumour. one thing good out of your post, Rand is that if they did considder doing it, they now know it would be a mistake :)
Glad to see it was only a rumour.
I really had trouble believing it would work.
I hate rules like that.
There are other ways to make your event unique. If you can't make a successful event without a rule like that - then get out of the event-planning business.
I've never been to either SES or SMX - can't afford to. But I read the notes by bloggers and so far the notes coming out of SMX are way better than SES notes.
SO - Incisive - don't screw yourself over by instituting a rule like that.
Funny they are being written up by the same people... guess the topics are newer and thus info seems fresh.
I noticed that too and wondered why. Most of the time I haven't really gotten much from conference notes. It reminds me of trying to grab notes from someone else in school when I missed a day and that never worked for me.
And it is the same people writing the notes, which makes me wonder what's different. Is the format different enough that people are able to spend more time putting the posts together? Is the freshness giving everyone a boost? Or is everyone simply getting better at covering conferences?
While I don't think it is Incisive's role to preclude their speakers from taking on additional opportunities, I do like the attempt to limit the repetition of speakers across shows (they should do this with SES first). I'd like to see brand new speakers at every conference. No offense to you Rand, but there really is a lot of repeat - even at the various SES shows - and as a result you see a lot of the same content, concepts and ideas.
The conferences have become a Roadshow and the same people go to all the cities... like the old Dead shows.
But they are put on across the country/globe so different people can see them. If Rand gives a great panel in NYC and it gets buzz people will be looking for it in San Jose ....
The rumors were false.... guess stirring the pot is something that happens in all industries... what you have to love is how quickly this one got clarified.
If true, definitely a bad move. What would be next... exclusivity at PubCon, AdTech, Affiliate Summit and other industry conferences? If a speaker has to choose between SES and, well, Danny, I think the choice would be obvious which in turn would hurt the quality of future SES conferences.
To me it sounds like Incisive are afraid of a little competition. Would you use Yahoo if you had to sign a contract saying you couldn't use Google for a certain period of time?
I think it could be the downfall of both if they simultaneously instituted this policy - I can't imagine most speakers wanting to be tied into only speaking at one conference. I guess it could depend how long the exclusivity was for - a few months either side might not hurt too much.
If I was them, I would be concerned that this would harm their ability to get speakers as much as it would provide the opportunity to prevent their speakers appearing at another event.
I think this might be rumour and here's why:
For many years - too many - I've been involved in organising conferences. I've seem many flirt withthe idea of speaker exclusivity and I can say one thing with absolute confidence:
Where suggested, SPEAKERS will *NOT* accept a contact which restricts their professional anything and speaking is professional promotion.
Also - really - can you see someone from Yahoo agreeing to exclusivity when they speak at everything from Blogging 4 Business to SES to the AOP? Not me...
I understand their reasoning, but this is not the way to go.
I like the new Ask also. Very cool.
Although you may have heard this first-hand i personally don think it would happen.
If it did however it would certainly cause some splitting relationships IMO
Looks like i was right ;)
First of all, I will be very dissapointed if SES does this. Speakers cannot be owned by any event imo. Speakers make the event successfull and are the core to any event's attraction. This is clearly an attempt to kick any competitor that they fear (In this case, Danny) out the door and prevent them from obtaining the best speakers. This is just wrong imo. It is the quality of speakers that made SES a success in the first place (Apart from Danny's involvement).
Do you think there's a strategic advantage there?
For sure! They are clearly attempting to prevent any other event from obtaining the best speakers in the industry. This will cause any other event (SMX) to be able to get the best. I am sorry. If SES do go this route, I will not support them.
BTW, if this includes speakers from Google, Yahoo! etc. will they prevent the companies or the individuals? This is just crazy!
That will hurt them more than help. I see their point, but its childish and stupid.