The Past & Future of Search Engine Strategies (SES)
OK - Bit of trivia time here! Who was the first representative from Google to speak on the "Meet the Search Engines" Panel at the very first SES back in '99? BTW... Shari you can't answer, because you were there. Gord Hotchkiss- you can't answer because you wrote the article that lead me to the page with the answer!
Do you give up? Well the answer is Larry Page, who at the time was Google's CEO and co-founder. How do I know this? Gord has an excellent article posted on SearchEngineGuide.com about "Life after SEW for Danny Sullivan", that clued me into this. In this article Gord links to the very first agenda page of the first SES that was held back in 1999 in San Francisco. I have to say I was surprise and delighted to see this page still "live".
Alright, now that you are back from reading that piece of search nostalgia, can I just add - "WOW.. look how far the search industry has come!". Thanks.... for letting me express that! :)
Truly, look at not only who presented, but what companies the presenters from. It's amazing both how much search has changed (some of these companies no longer exist in the form they were back then) and how these companies have grown (how many of us would jump at the chance to hear Larry Paige speak on a panel these days?).
Gord's article really rounds things out with Danny's announcement. It brings home a lot of thoughts and interesting points. I look at that agenda and I'm shocked it was all covered in one day! Probably more to the point, I really see now, how Danny not being at the helm of SES is really going to change.
This year at SES in San Jose, Danny really didn't have any involvement in the trade show side of the house. That was totally on Incisive Media. Danny ran the sessions, what the sessions would be, who spoke and so on. I've been to other SES's and they were run by Jupiter - never did I ever get a "corporate" kind of feel going on in any way. To be honest - this year I did. One thing in particular really drew my attention. The tables outside of the session with the free books.
I sat back and pondered .... "How did THAT happen?"
Don't get me wrong here - I'm totally for and support what that book is about, and I'm a fan of the book & its authors. But it just really made me think - "Why this book?" Why not another book by other speakers at SES? I can rattle off at least 5 books that had a much closer and more direct relationship to SEARCH, than the book I found on those tables.
I'm definitely not here to start of controversy about the contents of the book - my point is, in the prior SES's where it was run by Danny or Jupiter Media you never saw such a promotion outside of the sessions. More to the point this happened after Incisive Media's purchases SES from Jupiter Media. It really, truly makes me wonder now, how much more "corporate" and "promotional" SES is going to get in the future and if the true spirit that SES was built upon is going to disappear after December 7, 2006.
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