Mike Gerhan, a well know figure in the search industry, just replied to a post I made in his blog last night - I copied his entire comment so you can read it here.

Speaking and repeating at SES

Marshall (AKA WebMetricsGuru) posted a comment relating to the BMW story here.

He mentioned it may be a good topic to touch on at SES in New York in a couple of weeks. I think it’s an excellent subject, actually (big brand spam, that is).

I know that Detlev has been championing the cause, but I do have my own ideas on the subject matter too. And boy, wouldn’t it make a change from talking for another 90 minutes about the san… sand… no, I can’t spit it out!

Marshall also mentions that he’s seen me speak a couple of times at SES and it was basically just a repeat. This topic seems to come around from time-to-time when people, I presume, start coming to the conferences regularly.

So, for the sake of any second-timers at the upcoming SES in New York, I have a message.

***Don’t come back to the link basics session if you saw it at your first show***

This really is important as I don’t want anyone to waste time that could be otherwise better spent elsewhere.

The link basics session, is just that: basic. When you’ve seen it, you should never have to go back again.

Unless you didn’t get it first time. And I have to say, out of the zillions of times I’ve done that session with the "Moses" of link building, Eric Ward and the wonderfully eloquent Debra Mastaler, I’d find it hard to believe that you couldn’t get a firm, basic grasp of what linking is all about from that one session.

It’s kind of like Danny’s basics session. I know it gets updated, but generally it’s a primer for the rest of the show. And it’s very comprehensive so you really only need to see it once and then get stuck into the nitty-gritty. It doesn’t really change from show-to-show.

The whole point of those types of sessions, is that, the presentation remains the same, it’s the audience that changes.

As for any other sessions I do at SES, such as the organics session, they’re pure audience driven. And because that old san… sand… sandb… Nah, can’t get it out. Anyway, you know what I mean… Because that notion doesn’t seem likely to go away too soon, it’s the audience repeating - not me!

I’ll be adding the final additions to my speaking schedule at the end of this week. I think, for the first time, I’ll be heading down-under to meet up with some of my Australian buddies this year. I’ll let you know when the date is fixed.

My point is that I go to SES and Webmasterworld fairly often (at least - when I can afford to go or they are happening in the NY area) and more often than now, I hear the same things over and over with some slight changes.

Mike Gerhan is more interesting to listen to than the majority of speakers - but often I did not feel I learned anything new or useful - it’s more just hearing the story.  But I also want new information.