3 Questions With Kevin Ryan

Kevin Ryan was gracious enough to break away from his busy pre-SES conference schedule to answer a few questions for me.

1) Clearly there are some obvious “hot” sessions at SES San Jose (e.g. the Orion Panels); however, what hidden gems are there in the schedule that attendees might overlook?

We love the “hot” sessions of course but the hidden gems always made the event for me when I was a delegate. I am very excited to be talking to Lee Siegel on Monday, his latest book “Against the Machine” is an accurate and gut wrenching portrayal of his experience in surviving in the age of the social media “digital mafia.”

As you know, a great deal of preparation and work goes into planning the entire event. Moving beyond the Keynotes and Orion Panels, we have sessions that are designed for beginners like “Link Building Basics” and “Introduction to Search Engine Marketing.” As our world continues to expand and, at the same time, become more connected, we’ve added a number of sessions that address needs of global marketers. We have “Global Search for the B2B SEM ” and our ongoing series “Search Around the World.”

I’ve engineered day one of SES to focus on more “high level” issues with the rest of the week’s sessions focused on the practical and tactical. Midweek, we have some gems like “SEO Rehab” and an entire track dedicated to Social Search.

The last day of any event has always been my favorite. For a number of reasons, the crowds tend to be smaller and now matter how you look at it, you get more interaction and Q&A time with experts. The last day of SES is certainly worth sticking around for with Dan Heath, author of “Made to Stick” and sessions like “Best Kept Secrets,” “Search Advertising Tools” and the return of the “Organic Listings Forum.”

2) For a long time, SES and Pubcon dominated the SEO conference scene. Now, SMX plus a large number of smaller niche conferences (including Portland ‘s Searchfest) are also competing for attendee and sponsor dollars. How has the increased competition affected SES and have we reached a saturation point for new conferences?

I am not in position to predict the exact time and day of the saturation point, I can tell you that when I am not speaking at SES, I am booked solid for the rest of the year speaking at private corporate events, client meetings and other conferences. Does that tell you anything?

The search industry continues to grow very quickly but the conference business may not be able to match the growth. Only time will tell, but an educated guess, experience, and a lot time on the road tells me we have reached a saturation point in the US and the rest of the world is where the real opportunity exists. Domestically, if events seek to survive, they will have to carve out a niche and deploy synergistic growth strategies to survive in the long term.

There are two larger issues at work here that may be more germane to this line of questioning.

The first issue is the evolution of the entrepreneurial spirit, upon which many events and other endeavors are founded.

The events launch, become successful and invariably seem to be gobbled up by big corporate. The demands placed on impassioned leaders often give way to the perceived need to expand without consideration for the consequences of such expansions.

Deep in the bowels of big corporate, with very few (and very successful) exceptions thought leadership is placed at a distant second behind justifying multiple layers of bureaucracy. The events become part of the machine, thought leaders are dismissed in favor of administrators and the soul of the gathering is lost forever.

It is very difficult to justify editorial leadership and creative thought on a balance sheet. Those with the courage to do so will reap the benefits of their investment in intellectual capital.

Many of the events we see emerging now are seeking to capitalize on the (perceived or real) commoditization of knowledge gathering in larger events. Some will achieve marginal success and disappear, others will continue to flourish and eventually repeat the cycle.

The second issue-a down economy–only serves to exacerbate the situation, forcing self preservation behavior in management which is all-too-common in the grey flannel environment. Managers often fall into the trap of seeking “fall guys” for new endeavors and self preserving behavior takes over.

Down economies also force big corporate to scale back and further consolidate thereby perpetuating the intellectual capital commoditization theory. The single most detrimental effect of the down economy is forced behavior focusing on short term revenue that will only serve to drain remaining brand equity. This vicious cycle continues once the brand equity is depleted forcing more consolidations, sell offs and regurgitated acquisition.

For smaller events in a highly competitive environment, it’s becoming more difficult to launch. Conversely, as consolidations in big corporate become the standard, more and more managers are telling me they face the same challenges that entrepreneurs and start ups face coupled with the bureaucratic baggage of big corporate.

In the early days of dot comedy consolidation, I sat and listened to the CEO of a very large corporation talk about how he had just acquired the “entrepreneurial spirit.” I listened and giggled to myself. Shortly after, it was my turn on stage and I remember saying something like, “The fastest way to kill the entrepreneurial spirit is to introduce it to grey flannel.”

Generically speaking, thought leaders in the “grey flannel” environment face all kinds of challenges that may or may not outweigh the benefits of existing in big corporate. They seek to prevent the homogenization of creative execution and continue to fight the good fight until the emotional and psychological drains of trying to maintain brand equity in an increasingly commoditized, cost control and self serving corporate culture destroy any hope of maintaining the “soul.”

Ask anyone fighting the good fight and they will tell you the cold harsh truth. Leaving something positive behind for the next group to come along is far more important than the need to fill corporate coffers. They do it for the people around them. People who also care about the business, the industry and the progression of the world as we know it.

I’ll continue to do it as long as I can effect positive change and maintain some semblance of control over my own destiny. I have made mistakes in the past. I am sure I will make mistakes in the future. I seek to learn from those mistakes and balance the positive and negative effects of my actions.

When seeking out places to learn; be it an event, a publication or seminar, I would advise potential attendees to scrutinize the emphasis placed on thought leadership within the organization. There you will find the delineating qualities that will determine success or failure.

3) How has the social networking backchannel (especially Twitter) affected the conference-going experience?

We actually have a session on this at SES San Jose . This arena is highly volatile and I am interested in seeing how people are adopting the latest weapons in the conversational arsenal.

Blogging, micro blogging and the community or collective interest platforms have positive and negative effects on the conference experience.

Seemingly overnight, the concept of public opinion en masse has been transformed into an amalgamation of unique voices with highly segmented and influential opinions. Twitter offers (reliable?) an instant feedback platform but opinions can be highly biased, potentially very damaging and often little consideration is given to the consequences of these “instant conversations.”

I am on Twitter (@KevinMRyan) and when I do have the time to get on and participate, I wonder just how influential many of these opinions will be in the long term.

About Kevin Ryan: Kevin Ryan is the global content director for Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch. He’s a seasoned search and advertising industry veteran. His former roles include VP, Interactive Media for the Interpublic Group agency Wahlstrom Interactive, and CEO of Kinetic Results, a 2006 Advertising Age Top 20 search engine marketing firm. Kevin recently founded strategic consulting firm Motivity Marketing, and has published over 200 articles on search and interactive marketing. His former client roster includes notable brands including Rolex Watch, USA, State Farm Insurance, Farmers Insurance, Minolta Corporation, Samsung Electronics America, Toyota Motor Sales, USA , Panasonic Services, and the Hilton Hotels brands. Additionally, Kevin has volunteered his time for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), and several regional non-profit organizations.

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