I can’t imagine an event that will get more dedicated blog coverage than Blogworld, so even though I attended, I decided that I wasn’t going to write about it unless I had something interesting to say. So with that in mind I want to add my opinion out there on who I thought was hands down the best speaker at Blogworld 2008…Don Crowther.
I should start by saying that after over 13 years of experience in this space, and an ever increasing RSS subscription list from many of the speakers the conferences I attend, I don’t usually get a whole lot of information from Blogworld or many of the conferences I attend. I actually cut out many conferences like Ad:tech and Search Engine Strategies from my schedule. There is rarely any information disbursed at these events, and in the rare event there is, it will end up in my RSS within hours. This year I’m limiting myself to Blogworld, Pubcon and SXSW.
A rare exception to my pessimism in conference sessions came from the session Generating Traffic Through Social Media: 5 Strategies. Dow Crowther, who handled this session solo, did an amazing job of bringing real facts, experiences, and an insane amount of energy to the topic of how to leverage social media to gain traffic for websites.
I should add at this point that I’m not slouch at the art of getting traffic from social media, but I don’t think I could present the information in such an articulate and informative method as Don. Anyone not taking multiple pages of notes in this session missed a tremendous opportunity to take home information that would pay for this trip 10x.
Don energetically gave away much the advice that we charge a premium for at USWeb. Keep in mind that when we give this advice it is specifically tailored to clients, with specific ideas in mind. But one should easily be able to take Don’s information and apply it to their business.
So thank you Don for providing one of the best sessions I have had to honor to attend in years of conferences.
