Monday January 18th

Day 2 of Affiliate Summit for me started off a bit rocky.  I was far from hung over, but I awoke with the familiar feeling of an impending migraine.  I decided that, despite the morning keynote by Dr. Robert Cialdini not being recorded, I’d have to skip it in favor of some more quiet time before the storm to dispel the headache on the horizon.  Luckily it worked and I went down just at the end of the keynote to catch up with some folks to get the cliff’s notes version of the keynote and to find my first morning appointment.  Luckily, the staff were handing out little cheat sheet cards with the main bullet points from the keynote, which I got and took note of.

I mentioned I had a meeting.  I learned a valuable lesson at this conference – don’t just research what the person you’re meeting with does, research what they look like!  We’d decided to meet in outside the theater after the keynote, and man was that a bad idea.  A sea of unfamiliar faces and I have no idea what this guy looks like!  I hang around for about 15 minutes, trying to find someone who looks like they’re also looking for someone, to no avail.  I check my watch and decide that I have to move on in order to get to the session I wanted to go to.  So now I know that next time I have to meet with someone, I’m either going to meet them somewhere not so busy or snoop on their Facebook profile to see what they look like!

My first session of the day was Product Datafeeds: The Next Level, which by nature was dry, but sill interesting.  Scott Jangro did a great job as moderator and I did my best as a student.  I figured that I know the basics about datafeeds, but moving on in my career to a company that provides a coupon feed, I better learn more!  A full review of that will come later today.

After lunch, I did some time working in the For Me to Coupon booth in the expo hall.  I’m glad that I did some homework about the basics of the company before standing in the booth, because we certainly didn’t have a whole lot of downtime to chit chat.  People were coming by nonstop asking questions about the service, which is awesome.  I was put to the test many times on my knowledge, and thankfully only had to defer to Forrest & Nate a few times for questions I had no clue about.  But it was also a great opportunity to learn more nitty gritty stuff about the service when more technical affiliates stopped by with really detailed developer questions.  A great introduction to my new job!

I ducked away from the booth for some rejuvenation time in the blogger lounge, then on to the Oprah, Flogs and FTC: Hot Topics 2010 session.  It was interesting, but frustrated me that the presenter went through a LOT of good information in his presentation much too fast.  I’m incredibly happy though that the presentation has been uploaded to SlideShare, so when I post my recap of that, it’ll have the presentation link!

Before the activity for the evening I had a lovely few drinks with Heather Smith, Julie Vazquez, Lori Herren, & Joe Vaughn from Izea.  After playing with the Microsoft Surface table in the iBar, we moved our operation over to the All American Bar & Grill for the 20 cent chicken wings!  It’s the Rio’s 20th anniversary, so they had all sorts of deals like that.  About 60 wings, a basket of fries, and a few sodas all came in under $30!  I learned a TON more about Izea and their products sitting with two insiders and Joe, a sales manager from Izea.

After dinner, it was time for our evening activity, one of my favorite activities hands down anywhere – TRIVIAL PURSUIT!  They set up the Wii  on a large screen and popped in the game.  I was happily chosen 3rd or 4th for Team Missy Ward and we proceeded to kick ass.  Of course, another team came from behind in an upset win, but it was a TON of fun playing the game.  I know this is a game I’ll have to get for my wii.  It was good times, and everyone who played & stuck around until the end was generously given a complimentary Gold Pass for Affiliate Summit East 2010, which we’ll be using to bring Dominic along! 

For a normal, sane person, trivia’s end at midnight would have been the end of the evening, but oh no.  Now it was time to wander over to McFadden’s Restaurant & Saloon for a party once again thrown by the folks at GTO Management in conjunction with MakeBeer.net.  Coopers Brew makes some fine beer and their affiliate program is for the home brew kits that they sell, which are handy for the home brewer.  It was  a great time with displays of male competition and a punching bag game.  A few heads hit it and then headed off to another club, but I was done for the night around 2am so I headed back to the room to get some sleep before my early meeting!

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Can you believe that there are only 45 days left until Affiliate Summit West 2009?!  Depending on your outlook of time, this might seem like it’s a long time from now, but just like a project’s deadline, Affiliate Summit sneaks up on you!

At this point all of the meet market tables are sold out, as are most of the sponsorships.  According to co-founder Shawn Collins, there are still about a dozen booths available for any interested merchants or vendors. Conference passes grant attendees access to the expo hall, all break-out sessions, and the courtesy meals and drinks the conference graciously provides. These passes usually sell out about a week or two before the conference, so if you’re even considering going I highly suggest you register for Affiliate Summit West 2009 now.

When looking for a place to stay, I really do recommend staying at the conference hotel in all cases, and especially in this case I can personally vouch for the comfort and convenience of the Rio. Being an “all-suites” hotel is awesome as the rooms are totally comfortable and large, and downstairs if gambling isn’t your thing there’s a bowling ally and plenty of shops. Their Carnival World buffet is also excellent.

Or, you can read the reviews I did on Yelp after my stay there last year:

Sao Paulo Cafe
Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino
Carnival World Buffet
McFadden’s
McCarran International Airport

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