Since attending Search Engine Strategies in San Jose and listening to the intensely enthralling British/North Carolinian accent of founder Andy Beal, I’ve been hooked on Marketing Pilgrim. A good impression goes a long way with me, and I love that Andy seemed to read my mind in coming straight out and telling us in the audience the origins of his very unique speech accent. He was right… it would have bothered me the entire speech had I not been able to figure it out.

Hence, he made me laugh AND cleared the air and I was able to thoroughly enjoy his presentation and totally loved what he had to say and his take on Social Media Marketing and Reputation Management. I’ve since checked out the blog and find that it’s one of the best, most well written marketing blogs I’ve come across.

Andy and his staff are knowledgeable AND entertaining, two qualities that make a winning blog for me. They blog frequently and always have the latest tech news. I find myself getting most of my industry news from their website first, then seeking out other sources and clicking on their provided links for more in depth information. Although, they’re very thorough so it’s not often that I even have to look for a second source.

They’re also not afraid to give their opinion. The whole purpose of blogs that sets them apart from newspapers or websites strictly set up to deliver news is the take on that news. If I wanted to know what Blog Rush is, I could go almost anywhere to find a press release or their About Us page. But reading about BlogRush on Marketing Pilgrim gave me a very net savvy user’s opinion of the fledgling service and laid out some great food for thought.

Now, of course being new to the professional blogging kingdom I signed up anyway, BUT I learned about it on Marketing Pilgrim, and I think that’s the point here. All of the Pilgrim’s Picks are great sources for news and tools that are truly relevant, and I probably would never have found otherwise so kudos to the staff over there. Marketing Pilgrim has definitely overtaken my GoogleReader settings as one of my favorite blogs out there.

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Sometimes it’s pleasant to see an old coworker… other times, it’s best to avoid them. Which is what I did at Search Engine Strategies last week in San Jose. I’m not necessarily proud of what I did, but I successfully avoided what could have been a rather awkward situation, so it worked out for the best.

I spent the majority of the day in the Social Media track of the conference, learning more about the inner workings of Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and Wikipedia than I ever thought I wanted to know. Of course, one of the first things I did when getting back to the office was apply some of this and set up a Digg profile and a Technorati profile and an account on Del.icio.us. Since PsPrint doesn’t sell it’s content, I don’t really see Wikipedia as being that huge of an opportunity for us. But the others… well I’m shocked I wasn’t on them personally for awhile.

Now, my roots in social media lie in the likes of MySpace, message boards, and chat rooms. I’m not the seasoned internet user you’ll hear speaking at trade shows that’s been online since 1997… but that’s mostly because back in ‘97 I was still writing history essays and doing math homework in High School. I’ve been online since about the time I got to college, Fall of 1999. Going away to college and having to make all new friends, I immediately found chat rooms as a place to connect with like minded people. A friend introduced me to Live Journal back in ‘03 and I’ve been blogging ever since. When MySpace came around big time in ‘05 I jumped on that bandwagon and haven’t looked back.

Has it really been 2 years on MySpace? How time flies. But, I digress. SES was a great show for me to attend. Very informative, and my favorite part was how organized all the panelists were. Everyone had a neat & tidy Power Point presentation that will be available online this week, so I barely had to take any notes. I’ve also decided that the next time I go to one of these shows and attend the educational panels I’m going to be bringing a laptop. Since there was really no need for me to take many notes, it would have been great to be able to surf the websites that the panelists talked about while they were talking about them. I’m all about multi-tasking, so getting some work done while learning is my ideal.

This is becoming an exciting time for me. Learning more and more about the field I’m working in and exploring social media marketing is really exciting me to be moving onward here at PsPrint.

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So in less than 48 hours, this is where I will be… chilling with (hopefully) a fruity drink in my hand rearing to go and enjoy beautiful Las Vegas. I’ve needed a vacation for awhile now, and it’s good to go on a real vacation.

Of course, trying to get a bunch of projects done in time to go without worrying about work is almost impossible. It’s like the fates align to send every new project possible right into your inbox the day before you’re set to leave. Today was my last day in the office until next Tuesday, so of course new affiliate projects came across my desk, problems with mailing services customers happened, a new email marketing campaign launched, and I was IMed about a thousand times.

If only my vacation started tomorrow! While I won’t be in the office, I’ll instead be down in San Jose attending the Search Engine Strategies Expo at the Convention Center. They have a Social Media track of educational sessions that should be very informative and give me some good ideas for that task here at PsPrint in the coming months. I’ll be there in classes until about 2, then I’m going to walk around the expo and check it out a bit.

Afterwards, that’s when my vacation starts! First I’ll be meeting up with a friend from out of town in San Jose to go to the Winchester Mystery House. It’s amazing how terrible of a tourist one can be in their own area… I’ve never been there, despite being fascinated by it’s history since 3rd grade. So going there, then Friday morning flying to Las Vegas. I can’t wait.

So, I bid this blog adieu until the 28th when I get back. I leave you with a question: what did you do on YOUR summer vacation?

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