Negative SEO blog : SEOassassin

I don’t wish to retread the now well-trampled ground concerning the whole SES / SEW / Danny Sullivan / Chris Sherman / SEL / SMX / Incisive / whatever thing, but I did spot something interesting on my LinkedIn dashboard this morning.

People in your network are hiring:
Conferences Programming Director at Search Engine Strategies

Interestingly, the job is marked as a “LinkedIn exclusive”. I couldn’t find any other references to the post elsewhere, but I can’t say I looked all that hard, and it was only posted this morning in any case, so presumably they are still quite early in the hiring cycle. This may be an interesting test of the power (or not) of LinkedIn too - it got the job opening in front of my face, and although I’m nowhere near qualified to even consider applying, I am at least in roughly the right market sector.

So, kudos to LinkedIn for having gotten something right - I don’t know how many of the rest of you may have seen the listing, since my connection to Rory Brown (Incisive MD, and the hiring manager) is through noted LinkedIn Whore^TM, Ashley Friedlein (MD of e-consultancy.com), but not through any of my more “SEO” type connections.

That does raise an interesting question in my mind - where do you find another Danny Sullivan? I can think of a handful of people who could do the job, but I can’t imagine any of them really being interested, for various reasons.

Chris Sherman would have been an obvious choice, but he’s gone too. Brett Tabke certainly could do the job, but he runs SES most direct competitor, the PubCon series. Joseph Morin is a possibility, but AFAIK he’s fully occupied on Bretts side of the fence. Mike Grehan could step into the role, but he’s a fairly busy boy already. Then again, if it means he does a bit less flying, he might be persuaded. You can’t tell he’s a Geordie these days (unless he’s been drinking lots ), and a slightly more stable lifestyle might appeal. Todd “Oilman” Friesen would be another “maybe” candidate, but he seems settled at Range.

You could pull someone in from the “traditional conference management” arena, but I have the sneaking suspicion that Danny’s influence, and contacts, were a sizeable part of making SES what it is. He knows, personally, a lot of the “big name” speakers who have contributed to the success, and I think he is / was a fair part of why they stayed with SES. I think at least a few may migrate to SMX, and I don’t see an “old-school” conference director having the pull to tempt them back into the SES fold