- "I hate movies where water kills the bad guy." -- Eric Dyck from Neverblue Media
- "I feel like such a...cool person!" -- Tamar Weinberg talking about how she's a Power Digger. Tamar, you're such a dork.
- "I'm going to the Google!" -- Matt McGee talking about the Google Dance
- "How about you guys give out SEOmoz water bottles that say 'SEOmoz: We quench your thirst for search!' That would be so cool!" -- Adam Lasnik
- "We came down here for a drink, and then all of these people started pouring into the bar. What the hell is going on here?!" -- three British dudes who work for Cisco and were in town for an unrelated conference. The poor guys were so confused by all of the drunken, belligerent SEOs blathering on about links and rankings. They think we tinker with meta tags all day. Poor, naive Cisco brits. :)
- "I like a good party, and any time I come home with sand in my underwear it's a good party." -- Naoise Osborne talking about the Google Dance (there were beach volleyball courts).
- "This oil stain won't come out! Bruce is gonna kill me..." -- Lisa Barone complaining about her stained Bruce Clay shirt
"What, does it come out of your paycheck or something?" -- me - "If Rae Hoffman were here I'd be totally trashed by now." -- Tamar Weinberg
- "Ooh, it comes with a table!" -- Jill Sampey, after Pat Sexton and Frank Watson ordered a bucket of booze at dinner that did indeed come with a separate table on which to place said bucket.
- "Dude, if that were me I would totally win that truck for my son!" -- Chris Hooley discussing the movie Over the Top (which I'm assuming David Brown had just finished watching right before Search Bash...he took it higher, all right).
- "When are you guys going to have a booth at a conference?" -- Matt McGee
"Um, it's a bit expensive. Our booth would be set up on card tables. Near the bathrooms. And people would come up to it and ask us where they can get a BOTW t-shirt." -- me - "It would be cool if you could walk into your session to personalized music...like 'Eye of the Tiger'!" -- Matt Cutts
- "I'm going to talk to your son about not going to college." -- Neil Patel
"If he doesn't go to college then you better hire him." -- Barb Boser
"I can't afford him! He's a Boser!" -- Neil - "So I was reading Sphinn, and I was drunk..." -- Patrick Sexton
- "Oh my God, your name is R. Kelley! Hey R. Kelley! Don't pee on me!" -- Dax Herrera
By: Rebecca Kelley
Whaddya Say, San Jose?
Events
The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Ah, San Jose. Your city may be boring and somewhat bland, but your conference is always a fun time. Below are the best things I overheard at SES San Jose 2007:
A guy was telling me about the expo hall and said:
"Microsoft tried to sell me something they didn't have.... traffic"
ROFLMAO!!!
I'm really sorry to admit I have no idea what anybody said.
I do remember spilling my last Kamikaze at the SearchBash and telling Lisa we now matched (her oil, my whatever they put in there.)
Yeh, and I met you there, and you are like a super nice person, and I totally didn't realise who you were.. apologies, and I think we were probably on the same wave length at the time ;)
Why would we want to have a booth at a conference? We'd have to staff it.
Staff it with Premium Members, who else would you want to represent you but your people!....Patrick can hand out beers, and I'll continually make inappropriate comments!
Possibly the worse finacial mistake Rand could ever make would be to put me in charge of the beer distribution.
Yeah, I'm sure most would be consumed before it was given away ;)
it'd still make for a great show though....
LOL - entertaining post. Is it odd that I've heard similar quotes at conferences that were completely unrelated to the web and SEO?
Quite the list of quotes. There are some characters at these events, that's for sure. Which was your favorite overheard remark out of the bunch?
Can't wait for the comics!
I overheard at lunch a group of three newbies - woman was in her 40s with 2 20-something guys... she leant in and whispered just loud enough for me to hear...
Everyone here is on speed.....
and this was lunch time - come on most of us were barely awake.... I would have loved to have brought her on the Dinner Death Walk and heard her comments.... we could have sold her at that corner....
Dude, who had the speed???
Come on, thats not cool, friends share.
Tamar was on at this conference...
"Magnets, I need more magnets" - Tamar
"Wanna see the before and after pictures of my ankle?" - Tamar
shhh.
Hee! If I had to look at those damn ankle shots one more time... :)
Damn you all and your in-jokes!
I have one - sorry I didnt catch the guy's name - he was behind me on the bus to the Google Dance.
"You can see the changing face of SEM in that Google has pretty boys on the bus as well as pretty girls."
Wow, that's really nice of you Carrie....you just made my day! ;)
"Rebecca, I bought this shot for you, I think it's Tequila?"
What's been great about this whole week is there has been lot's of content coming from San Jose. Those of us not in attendance appreciate all the work everyone has done to capture the mood. Thanks!
Nice roundup...as the night(s) wore on, pretty much everything that came out of Pat's mouth was funny...sadly my memory of quotes and events faded on a similar trajectory...
Not remembering rocks!
And you're surprised?
Surely a memorable quote from Pat would have been:
;)
I want my theme music to be "The Final Countdown".
That's what I told Matt Cutts! I like the way you think, Gladstein!
Greg Boser on the "Are Paid Links Evil" panel saying "I'm just going to start a blog... charge $99 to review your site. problem solved" LOL Paid links? no one buys those do they?
And Rebecca when's the comic strip coming out?
db
Where is the cartoon strip?
I'm going to the doctor this afternoon to see if I can rid myself of the plague. Expect the comics by mid next week now.
Had to have gotten it from the Dinner Death March - weakened the system
Update: I have a viral infection that developed into a lovely sinus/ear infection. The doctor gave me two weeks of amoxicillin to clear it up. Yaay...
Bleh. Feel better.
hope you are feeling better
wating with baited breath for the comics, but we can wait - even those of us with minimal suspense-capability stregnths :) get you well.
fantastic!
"Sounds" like you guys had a great time - wish I coulda been there!
You definitely ended the list on a very high note, hahaha
"Google penalizing paid links? Never heard of it - I don't think that affects our business at all ... wait, do you mean meta tags?"
--People at the adbrite booth
AHAHAHAHAHAHA so funny... I think I just peed a little
"Don't pee on me!" nice one Dax
Damn R Kelly what does a guy have to do to get quoted =(
Haha, sorry Shoe, I'll add one of yours if I can think of something rad.
I'm cleaning up the audio of the clip of you and Dax on the ivorys, I'll post it soon.
It's fantastic
<<They think we tinker with meta tags all day>>
It's not just the techies that think this. I intereviewed a guy for a Senior Level SEM position and he told me that was way high on his priority list for perfoming SEO - as in can't live without it...there was no second call.
-OldSchool
Was there any SEO talk going on? :-)
At the 25th SES San Jose I want to sponsor the walkers - they will be the top swag items
Swag is AWESOME... It just gets a bit tricky when you wear someone elses and their clients think you're one of their team... though that can be fun too, diplomacy, being nice and not being pissed as a fart helps... ;) - The WebMaster Radio Bash was ENORMOUS :) - I missed a whole bunch of folk though, but wanted to shout out to Bill (possibly one of the most intelligent men I have ever met) and Andy (my knight in shining armor) :).. and I missed Shor - though I kept bumping into Rand and I think he thinks I'm a stalker - Hey Rand :P
<edit? I LOVE swag... nice swag... that fits... size 8-10 if you're interested - or extra large for the tee shirts - they make nice mini dresses :D... though you'll have to go a long way to beat my SES San Jose favorite swag item... I might even frame it - it was the best fitting item I have ever had off the rack!... gotta love swag clothes - and the folks that come with it - there is a second knight in shining armor here - so a shout out to Phil too :)
Honest Question: Why go to an SEO convention? (unless you are a newbie).. in the case of SEOMOz i would imagine you might sell some premium subscriptions... but as an seo person.. who works actively at her/his craft.. do ya pick up business or just get people trying to pick your brain about SEO? (i did at all the ad conventions, and besides getting roped into volunteering, etc.. i got NO business leads. of course this was in the 90s and people didn't get SEO like they do today...)
I did the ad league thing (AAF) forever, president, etc.. and yeah u get to party with your peers, make bets with the other guy advertiisers about who can bag the most a babes that weekend, drink, etc..
is it just that people go for the like minds?
We picked up a good number of clients at conferences and also networked with various SEOs who were able to refer some work to us and vice versa.
I think there's also a ton of people who aren't "SEOs" per se, who go to learn about the subject. Most of the audience are representing businesses who need help doing SEO.
Yeah, plus you can drink and stuff.