Whenever I attend seminars, presentations, workshops or the like, as long as I learn one new thing I am satisfied. Well, I learned many things at SES – well worth the admission!

After arriving at the New York Hilton®, I started my week with an obligatory walk through the Expo. All of the usual suspects were represented, from Google® to Bruce Clay to Microsoft®, as well as many less known search marketing companies. We’ve had a booth at SES before, though it occurred to me that this is really a show by search marketers for search marketers. So I’m not sure why booth presence is necessary. I suppose it could serve some business development purpose (which, incidentally, was the only reason I walked the floor!).

I was able to meet some wonderful people. I’d met the folks from Bruce Clay before and was happy to catch up with them again. The Google booth was full of activity and I was able to spend some time picking their collective brain…

The sessions were varied and filled with information. Some were better than others, I tried to choose well! The session that I liked most was, “Why Local is Different.� I especially liked the portion of the presentation given by Benu Aggarwal, founder and president of Milestone Internet Marketing, Inc. Benu presented what I think we all were after: specific tactics on how to optimize for local. This was huge – I remember commenting to a colleague, “I wish she had the full 90 minutes!� Well done, Benu.

My favorite panel was the discussion on Universal Search. The panel was stacked with incredible industry minds…

· John Battelle, Founder/Chairman/CEO, Federated Media

· James Lamberti, Senior Vice President, Search and Media, comScore, Inc

· Lyndsay Menzies, Managing Director, Big Mouth Media

· Jack Menzel, PM for Universal Search, Google®

Poor Jack – I swear the guys and gals at Google® walk around with targets on their backs! Most of the questions and conversation seemed to revolve around how Google® planned on monetizing traffic, if the presence of rich media on the SERP tended to preclude clicks out via sponsored ads; an interesting question, indeed. At its core, Google® is still a search engine, just with the addition of some little media value ads like, um, YouTube. The conversation was thought provoking and at times, spirited. We even found out that one of the moderators spent an inordinate amount of time searching for semi-clothed images of Shakira – all in the name of universal search research, of course!

We’ll look forward to the next SES event. It was a couple of days well spent in the Big Apple…