Well, while I’d intended to recap each day… that didn’t exactly happen as you can tell.  I do intend to post the notes I took from the sessions and the impressions to help everyone learn the great stuff I learned.  Some of the more hot button sessions can’t be covered in mere bullet points, so it will take me a day or so longer to get my thoughts together for those.

I covered Saturday & Sunday (mostly… the ShareASale party was nice although I didn’t stay long), so let’s jump right into Monday & Tuesday, the busiest days of the conference.

Day  2 - Divide & Conquer

1. In many ways this is the day that the summit starts.  In the past the breakout sessions have only been on Monday & Tuesday, however this year they were extended to Sunday.  Regardless, the keynote was given on Monday by Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker.  If you didn’t want to jump up ready to go, you didn’t listen to what Mayor Booker had to say.  It was a great speech, and I already posted my thoughts about it.
2. The blogger’s lounge helped save my sanity.  It was nice to be able to go in there in the 30 minute breaks between sessions & chat with people and do a little bit of work.  Had the wifi worked out better for me (not sure if it was my ancient laptop or the actual connection that was the issue) I would have been able to get more posts up during the actual conference.  I hope to have a better laptop by the next show I go to so I can just live blog it!
3. Of the 3 sessions I attended, the best was Content That Kills.  It was informative, had great tips and information, and there were good questions asked by the audience.  I may be biased being a writer by heart, but it was good stuff.
4. The other sessions I attended that day were the Performance Marketing Alliance Q&A, which turned more into a witch hunt filled with personal issues unfortunately, and How is Social Media Changing Affiliate Marketing, which apparently it isn’t because that question was never really answered.  More on those in their own posts.
5. The Great Affiliate Road Rally was a slaughterhouse win!  With just three cars in it this time, the first place car took off like a shot and left the others in their dust!  Congrats to them & to the others?  Well remember the entry fee went to charity & you won’t feel so bad
6. Monday night I had dinner with a lovely group of new friends & colleagues and then headed over to the LinkShare event at Tia’s.  The event was a whole new group of people to talk to and had a great time talking some shop and reminiscing over Police Academy flicks with Wil Reynolds & Jim Kukral.
7. Oh no, that wasn’t the end!  After that we headed back to the hotel where we shut down the bar there and moved across the street to a small bar by the water & had a great time chatting with people and generally schmoozing before rolling into bed.

Day 3 - Epic Games

1. It was a matter of sleep vs. sessions I wasn’t overly excited about attending, so I missed the Ask the Experts table discussions & The Future of Affiliate Marketing to sleep in & get refreshed for the Copywriting Clinic, which I very much wanted to attend.  I hear I didn’t miss much.
2. Speaking of the Copywriting Clinic, Lisa Riolo did an excellent job moderating and the panelists were excellent.  I took 3 full pages of notes on this session, so you’re in for a huge post later on!
3. The Ethical Issues in Affiliate Marketing session turned into the biggest fail session of the conference for me.  The moderator Haiko de Poel Jr was doing a pretty bad job… usually when you’re the moderator of a panel of “experts” your job is to pass questions to the best suited panel member, not challenge the question back to the audience member who asked it.  I have much more to say, so I’ll save it for later.
4. The un-keynote was very relaxed and I actually got up & talked…which was big for me knowing that it was being video taped!  I just hope when I look back at it that I don’t look like a fool lol.
5. Luckily I was able to attend the Red Sox vs. Rangers game at Fenway with some fellow baseball loving conference attendees.  Being a moderate baseball fan I was really thrilled to be there & the game was crazy!  The Red Sox almost blew a 10-0 lead in the 1st but came back in the last inning to tie it up and then ultimately overtake the Rangers with an epic score of 17-19 Red Sox.  We only spent a few innings in the stands before the rain started, but I got some great pictures and we continued watching the game from inside near the concessions so it wasn’t a waste.
6. More bar shenanigans, then some piano playing until late kept me up long enough to decide not to go to bed before my early flight out of town.  Overall what a great end to a great conference.

Final Thought - Springer Style

Overall I had the best time at this conference - not just because it was fun and I met a lot of terrific people who I’ve had the chance to get to know online and now have had the opportunity to meet in person - but because I just learned so much that I “get it” now.  I remember back in February going to the Affiliate Summit West and having a conversation with my husband that I was actually starting to understand more and more about the industry and that I really felt like this was an industry I could get excited about.

And I have… and this reinforced so much for me how much I really like this industry!  I’m back to the “real world” here and ready to conquer it!

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