I’m active in the SEMPO Meetup group in New York and on the SEMPO Research Committee, and have helped plan some of the SEMPO events including last May’s DATASTORIES Meetup at Google and was the person who came up with the idea of a boat cruize around Manhattan, last year.    I don’t think the boat cruize happened last year but this year, it did happen, and I was on it, along with some friends and a great crowd, overall.

Here’s a description of the SEMPO Boat Cruize – all of it came to pass except we did not hold any themed content stories – everyone was on the boat cruize to have a good time and we just ate, drank and viewed Manhattan in the light of a Full Moon.

I took several videos using my iPhone 3GS, uploaded them to YouTube, and made a playlist that I embedded below.

You asked for a cruise, and a cruise you shall have!

On August 6, up to 130 members of the SEMPO NY Working Group will board the Lucille with Marco Polo Cruises as we take search to the high seas. (Ok, well, the East River.) The cruise will include:

• 3 hour open bar
• Buffet dinner
• 80FT boat features with 2 decks
• Music
• Some amazing views of the city

In addition to fun, we are setting up themed content stations where you can meet others interested in the search topics most important to you. The first three topics are:

• Analytics & Attribution
• In House vs. Agency
• The Future of Search Engines

The last three will be determined by you, the audience! Vote on your favorites at this Meetup poll. We’ll cruise with the top three!

To attend, members must pay $20 via the meetup site at the time they RSVP.

A huge thanks goes to to our generous sponsors: Enquisite, Century Interactive and Clickable!

Among the people I spoke to were …

Rebecca Lieb , Leticia Colon, R. Scott Hall, Matt McGowan, Chandlee Bryan, Max Kalehoff, Sara Holoubek, Cynthia Fishel, Jane Ranzman, Alina Braverman, kelvin dickerson, Devin A. Brown, Christopher Hart, Nataliya Yakushev.

In the 3 of 8 videos in the playlist I capture Matt McGowan and Mike Grehan promising me I’d speak at SES New York next spring – and I congradulated Mike Grehan on the news (see Mike Grehan Named VP and Global Content Director for Search Engine Watch, ClickZ and Search Engine Strategies at PRWEB).

There was several fun moments on this Cruize and quite a bit of good networking – weather it was my idea, or not, I’m glad the cruize happened, and it was a perfect night for it.