While at Affiliate Convention, I took the opportunity to bust out my Flip camera and take some brief footage of the party Paulson Management Group threw at alto in Denver.  I also got some snipits of Heather speaking on various panels during the show.  I have to say, this was actually the first time I used the FlipShare software to compile multiple short videos into one “movie” and upload straight to YouTube from the software.  I wish I’d have been able to add a few more titles in between, but for really simple compilations it works great!

So without further ado, PMG at Affiliate Convention.

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The first ever Affiliate Convention took place last week at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, CO.  I came, I saw, I networked, I spoke, I left!  All of my pictures are up on Flickr and Facebook, and video is coming soon!  All in all, I’d say the conference was a success for both Paulson Management Group and for the event’s organizers.  PMG hosted a classy party downtown which turned out to be the only party without women in various states of undress!  We at PMG had a great time: Heather Paulson spoke on two panels, I spoke on a panel, and Tony Cohn and Clarissa Cutrell both moderated panels.  Overall it was a great time to be had.

Unfortunately, the only panels I was able to attend were the Super Affiliate Strategies panel and the Final Debate panel, both of which involved Heather speaking, so I was focused on taking lots of pictures and video and not taking notes to share here like I normally do.  But the plus side is that I’ll be sharing the video of some of Heather’s bits of knowledge soon.  The irony in this is that Affiliate Convention was definitely geared more towards the education of affiliates and less about trends in the industry.  With affiliates getting free entry, there was an overwhelming show that I’ve not seen at past Affiliate Summit’s I’ve attended.  Paulson Management Group was the only OPM in strong attendance, which was good for us that we stood out, but a little frustrating to explain 100 times that we weren’t a network of some kind (almost all of the other exhibitors were networks).

We avoided the opening night’s party being held at a gentleman’s club (in full operation), and instead spent the evening in Boulder, where PMG is based and Tony & I (both having flown out from California) were staying. The following day, the first day of Affiliate Convention offered a huge turn out of affiliates wandering the exhibit hall floor, which was a quite intimate setting with about 20-25 exhibitors divided between full booths and table tops.  We were always busy telling affiliates about the programs we manage that they’d be interested in, and it wasn’t just because we had plates of cookies!  We took turns in the booth, making sure we all got a chance to network, wander around to check out the conference, and took PLENTY of photos with various affiliates and other industry folks that stopped by to chat!

Later that night, as I mentioned before, PMG threw a great party at Alto Restaurant in the lower downtown (LoDo) area of Denver.  It was a fantastic venue that offered plenty of room for people to wander around and network.  Jazz filled the rooms at first, but once the in-house DJ showed up, we let him do his thing and the result was a strange yet awesome mix of newer hip hop, rock, and some 80’s songs thrown in.  We gave away a Flip Mino HD Video Camera to CPA network XY7 for all they did in helping Affiliate Convention happen.  Afterward we headed to the WebmasterRadio.fm Affiliate Bash just around the corner, where libations and good times were had.  The party had hired some wait staff ladies to be topless and painted with scenes of Colorado on their fronts and the logos of the sponsors on their backs.  It was definitely interesting to see the artists work freehand trying to recreate photos of scenery and the logos (and some men behaving questionably as the night wore on).

The second day was a bit slower in terms of the exhibit hall, but I know the session in which I was a speaker, Social Media Marketing, was standing room only!  I hear most of the other sessions were that way too.  Moderated by Dave Taylor, our panel featured myself, Wade Sisson of PartnerCentric, and David Snyder of Search & Social.  David trucked through despite a cold, and I forgot the last point I was going to make during the Q&A, but otherwise I think it was fantastic.  I heard some good feedback, and if you were there and have more feedback for me I’m all ears!  I’ve spoken before at the Social Media Marketing Summit back in October, but this was definitely more of an industry conference, so I was a tiny bit more nervous.  But it was excellent practice for my upcomming panel at Affiliate Summit East 2009 in August!

Heather spoke on the final panel, which was billed as a debate but ended up more like an “Ask the Experts” panel, which was cool too.  I busted out my Flip and took some video of her nuggets of information, which I’ll share soon.  After the event was done, some people headed over to a final party, but thanks to Dina and MarketLeverage, Tony and I headed over to Coors Field to check out a Colorado Rockies game!  So, yeah big thanks while I’m at it to MarketLeverage for being awesome and getting a sky box that had tons of food, a great view, and awesome company.  Another quick shout out to Tony & my new network BFF’s NDemand Affliates’ Mike & Robert for the ride back to Boulder and good times.

Saturday our team decided to sleep in and skip the Webmaster Pub Social and have a team BBQ.  Tony did a great job corralling the fire and the chicken drumsticks were awesome.  The flight home was uneventful and I’m glad to be back at sea level and ready to hit the ground running with all the new stuff I picked up from attending!

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I gave the Cribbed Content feature a rest for awhile because, admittedly, I wasn’t really keeping up with much around me.  I’ve put myself into a little corner of existence and did what I had to do.  I’ve got to say, on a personal note, that being continually employed for the last five years and then having a lull in work for three weeks waiting for some things to fall into place has been a bit difficult to handle.  I’m back on track now, back to keeping tabs on what’s going on around me, back to our weekly Affiliate Marketing Fanatics podcast on GeekCast.fm, and ready to kick some serious booty!  I’ve seen some cool stuff that I’m compelled to share!

• Link Cloaking, What is it? – Scott Jangro addresses the ways you can cloak affiliate links.  Also see where I discussed PHP redirects.
• The only coding I really know well is HTML, and I was passed this great article on 10 Rare HTML Tags You Really Should Know through StumbleUpon.  I’m definitely going to be putting some of these into immediate use!
• Did you see the ShareASale Photo Booth at Affiliate Summit West 2009?  I don’t think I did… but that’s okay, because they’re sharing the photos online and I don’t need more goofy photos of myself on the net.  Go check them out and rate them!  And if you’re disappointed you missed it, don’t worry… they plan on bringing it back for Affiliate Summit East this summer in New York!
• A new conference for affiliates, Affiliate Convention, is taking place next month.  I won’t be able to attend, but PMG will be represented as Heather Paulson will be speaking about super affiliate marketing techniques.
• There’s been a lot of rallying together lately with the tax nexus issues in several states affecting affiliate marketers.  Ed Byerly from one fledgling organization Affilaite Trust posted his thoughts on the surge of affiliate organizations attempting to unify a rather rag-tag group of people who make up this industry.
• For those email marketers out there, don’t worry I haven’t turned my back on you!  Check out this cool free tool to make sure your reverse DNS is set up right!

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