Leaving on a Jet Plane
I apologize, dear reader, as this blog has been on auto pilot lately. A lot has been going on in my world, both personal and professional, and it’s still taking a lot of time and energy to get sorted out.
The good news is, I’ll be back at the helm soon. I’m heading down to CJU tonight and then Blog World Expo next weekend, so I’m sure I’ll be super jazzed to come back to this blog in full force. Lots of travel in my future, which makes me slightly even more stressed considering I’m not the biggest fan of flying really, and I haven’t packed anything yet. Luckily, I have been traveling so much in the last year that I’ve gotten into the habit of keeping travel sized stuff always packed in my toiletries bag instead of packing the stuff I use normally. Travel size for the win!
CJU will be my first network event, and I’m excited. I was looking at the agenda last week in putting together my schedule, and I really appreciate that there aren’t really that many choices to choose from during the few break out sessions. I assume that most of the sessions are just put on my Commission Junction staff considering there’s no names attached to the sessions like other shows. The keynote will be given by Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple guy now working on AllTop.com. I’ve been following Guy on Twitter for sometime now, so seeing him speak in person will be nice. I know a few folks who’ll be there, so it should be a good time. My one regret is that I didn’t book soon enough to get into the conference hotel, Fess Parker’s DoubleTree Resort. I’ve heard great things, but booked too late so I’m staying nearby. Maybe next year!
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I checked out the agenda for Blog World Expo and there’s about 7-10 sessions per time block to choose from! It’s hard, because my interests vary and I know some good people on panels that I want to check out. Savvy internet marketers talking about monetization that I don’t mention nearly enough, Michael Buechele and Tim Jones. And of course there’s the usual suspects that I love – Jim Kukral, Lisa Picarille, Shawn Collins, etc. I’m not done scheduling for that since I have some tough choices to make in terms of which sessions to attend. I also noticed that one of my favorite musicians, Mike Shinoda, is going to be participating in one of the keynotes. I have no clue WHY lol, but I may have to throw my last Linkin Park CD into my bag in hopes of an encounter!
So, that is what’s on my plate for now. I only have part of a day in between CJU and BlogWorldExpo, so hopefully I’ll get the notes from my CJ sessions up for you to learn from before I’m off again! In the meantime, I hope you’re not overinundated with the daily definitions and happy to take a break 😉
Read MoreArrived Safely in Boston
I have arrived & ready for Affiliate Summit East 2008! I have to first say kudos to Missy & Shawn for selecting a wonderful hotel & conference center to host the summit! It’s super close to the airport so it took me much less time to get here than I anticipated, great in-room accommodations (LAN connection FTW!), and speedy service. Let me illustrate my time line thus far for you.
- 6:50a – Plane landed
- 7:20a – collected bags & waited less than 5 minutes for a cab
- 7:35ish – arrived @ Seaport & checked in
- 7:40a – ordered some hot breakfast
- 8:00a – was eating wonderful hot breakfast
So, speedy service is always excellent! I’ve had time to take a shower & refresh from my red-eye flight from Oakland & am now getting ready ti head down to the Affiliate Classroom Live event to join everyone mid-morning as I’m expected. More kudos are in order for the Summit’s partnership with Jet Blue…I’d never flown Jet Blue before and it was delightful. Thanks to the wonderful timing of my flight, FX channel programming, and the fates, there is NOTHING as cool as watching the final climax of Batman Begins (the elevated train derailment) at the exact time a jet is taking off below you!
I’ll leave your morning reading with some tips regarding the hotel I’ve discovered thus far, and then I have to finish getting ready and go find the right room!
- The body lotion in the bathroom – a little goes a LONG way.
- I got a really low connection to the wi-fi, but that might just be my nearly ancient Dell Latitude laptop, so if you’re in room I recommend using the LAN cable on the desk.
- In room dining was SUPER fast this morning; could have been the time of day but I’m hoping it’s just fast & excellent service.
- Staff has all be enormously friendly.
- If your room is laid out like mine (and I didn’t opt for anything special) the cabinet below the TV & ice bucket has a fridge…I didn’t find it at first lol
Remember if you see me around I look like this – say hi!!
Read MoreBall: Dropped Stress: High
I have good news, and I have bad news. Hopefully this will explain why I’ve been asleep at the wheel here.
First, the good!
- TrishaLyn.com is now available as a mobile compatible site! Just point your smartphone browser to www.trishalyn.com! Thanks to Shawn Collins & the Geek Cast crew for mentioning this nifty plugin in the last episode and Shawn specifically for sending me the link.
- Speaking of Geek Cast, I was mentioned two weeks running. Apparently Scott Jangro and I will be the only audience members for their Geek Cast Live show from Affiliate Summit, and Lisa’s counting on me to help keep the boys in line. Ah, good times will be had I can FEEL it!
- Affiliate Summit East 2008 is SOLD OUT and takes place in a little over a week. I’m excited to be hitting Boston again and finally meeting some of these people I’ve been networkin’ with online since the last summit.
- Affiliate Classroom Live! is also in about a week, so I really REALLY need to get my act together and formulate some talking points for the round-table discussion I’ll be leading.
Now, the not so great.
I’m sad to say that after almost 2 years my beloved supervisor is leaving our company. I’m going to miss her tremendously as she’s been a complete pleasure and joy to work for! To be honest, I’m taking the change harder than I should because of….- I’m moving! Just from one city here in the East San Francisco Bay Area to another, nothing major. It’s just that I absolutely detest packing and moving. Luckily my husband acknowledges that I’m a weakling and useless in the actual heavy lifting, so I’m on packing and unpacking duty.
- With the change in my supervisor leaving, my job responsibilities are changing as well. I don’t think I can say much right now, but involves some shifting in terms of my focused projects within the marketing department.
Obviously the combined changes of job responsibilities, moving, taking a long weekend vacation to celebrate my 5th wedding anniversary, and taking off for several days to attend Affiliate Summit East are all a bit overwhelming. I hope to be rejuvenated after my vacation and be able to jump back into the swing of things with some excellent coverage of Affiliate Summit!
If you’re giving away stress balls at the summit, save one for me!!
Read MoreCribbed Content for July 4th
Happy Independence Day! You should be out enjoying a parade, a nice BBQ, or some spectacular fireworks! I’ll forgive you if you’ve chosen to give my innocent blog a quick view amidst all the celebration though ;).
- A few months ago, Google officially acquired DoubleClick Performics, an affiliate network. This week they’ve rebranded as Google Affiliate Network. Shawn Collins wrote up his perspective on this – definitely seems to be a step in the right direction for the reputation of affiliate marketing.
- Last week I mentioned an irresponsible attack on the PMA by Shoemoney. Swift to clear up any confusion, the team posted What Exactly Is Affiliate Classroom’s Role in the PMA?
That’s it! Go forth and have fun this 4th!
Read MoreCribbed Content for June 27th
Surprisingly enough, this week is flying by for me. It seems like a slow summer week, but at the same time I’ve been awfully busy with some new projects at work and some thoughts circling in my head about a new website I may tackle soon. The idea is all there, but I have to flesh it out and, really, decide if I have time to do it! Here are your links for this week – the word around the campfire in online business.
- Once again, the affiliate marketing industry attacked as douchebags. And by people who call themselves professionals, no less. Shawn Collins did all the lashing out necessary in his blog Consultants Can Fix Affiliate Marketing.
- Congratulations to Lisa Picarille & Revenue Magazine for winning the Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocate Golden Link award at this week’s Linkshare Symposium. It was worth is for her to be able to say “Sorry, Jangro”. If you don’t get the reference, go to www.SorryJangro.com
- Just yesterday on the heels of Google partnering with Yahoo and more talk of a potential Microsoft bid on the company, Yahoo officially announced their reorganization plans. In laymens terms, they’re taking some time to get their shit together 🙂
- More confusion is being perpetrated about the PMA by Shoemoney. Try doing some research next time before declaring something is a scam with shady intentions. Affiliate Classroom is NOT running it, they’re just providing a website and vehicle for it. Other companies are providing resources as well.
Affiliate Thing Post-Show
On Tuesday I had the pleasure of co-hosting the Affiliate Thing podcast with Shawn Collins of Affiliate Summit. Let me start by saying that I was unaware that it’s a live show since I always listen to it on iTunes or GeekCast.fm. I listened to the recording last night that’s up over at GeekCast.fm and I have some criticism for myself.
First though, the experience. Monday night I spent nearly an hour fussing with Skype. The test call was choppy and I couldn’t understand all of what it was saying. But all my settings seemed fine. I determined at last that it had to be my internet connection, which has a tendency to be not so good in the evenings sometimes. I must have called the test call in the neighborhood of 30 times. I also called my husband’s cell phone to see if it was any better – nope. He could hear me pretty well but I could barely hear him. I finally give up and hope that it works in the morning or that there’s another option for me to call in or something if all else fails.
I can’t sleep (of course) because I’m nervous about the show. I finally get to sleep and surprisingly have no trouble waking up early the next day for the show. I’m on the West Coast and I usually work 10 am to 7 pm at PsPrint, so I had to get up around 8:30 am to wake up enough to tape the show at 9 am. I fire up my home computer and get Skype up and running, calling the test call about 10 more times with only slightly better results than the night before.
I let Shawn know over the messenger portion of Skype that I’m having issues and he suggests we start anyway and if it’s too bad I can drop off. Luckily when WebmasterRadio.fm called, it was much clearer. Which begs the question – shouldn’t the test caller be the best quality possible? I digress…
The call itself went great in the moment… there weren’t any points where I was sitting there silently banging my head. I fumbled the intro to myself, which is ironic because that’s what was keeping me up the night before – how to whip in PsPrint AND this blog. I figured that was the only part I could rehearse, and coming from a theatrical background I’m a fan of rehearsal.
Now, for my “notes to self”.
- Be more conscious of how close my mic is to my keyboard and how loud I’m typing.
- Do more research about what’s going on so I can suggest more topics instead of being a ‘yes’ woman.
- Don’t laugh – it doesn’t come across well over the phone/skype.
- Attempt to fix the skype thing because in the recording I do hear myself cut out sometimes.
I think, all in all, this was a good exercise for me in giving up control of my image and gives me some things to work on. Please, go listen, and add on to my notes so I can work on my presence, public relations and such! In advance, I truly appreciate it.
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