The Ten Things You’ll Find At TRAFFIC

I would have loved to be in Vancouver but still my busy time here at work and between my work travel, family travel, and triathlon travel, another trip would have put me in the doghouse at 3 different locations.  After attending TRAFFIC Vegas, my first and only domaining conference,  it didn’t take long to understand the importance.  It also didn’t take long to find the good, the bad, and the funny about domaining conferences.  Here are 10 things I can guarantee you’ll find in Vancouver

1. Morgan Linton hanging outside the main room putting up his lights. Everyone knows Morgan by now and he is the official videographer, interviewer, and historian of the domain world.  He’s also a great guy and very approachable.  If you want to meet someone at the conference but too afraid to approach them?   Ask Morgan.  Don’t know who someone is?  Ask Morgan?  Need to find a good restaurant to eat?…..Ask Morgan

2. Some good looking girl from another country.    They are at every conference, it’s not just domaining.   Every country has their beautiful women and nothing makes a better representative and draws attention than sending someone who is easy on the eyes.  Then there’s Skenzo that sent Zaev.  Ouch 🙂

3. The guy that spends $1000 to go to the conference and misses half the seminars and doesn’t even pay attention to the rest.  Not sure what these people are there for but somebody is wasting their money.

4.  The uncomfortable bill. This is the part where everyone lives it up either through dinner or at a club and some of the smaller domainers go out with the “big boys”.  There’s the poor domainer that didn’t drink any wine or hardly drank at the club and they’re forced to split the bill.  I got caught in one of these.  Kindly ask how the payment will go before you enter the mix. Nobody will be offended and it will save you headaches at the end.  Heck somebody may pick up your tab but don’t assume

5.  Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu sitting together having a good old time.  The Mayor and the Mouth (and I mean that in the nicest way) don’t have the limitations of many other domainers and freely bid and interact through the whole live auction.  They seem to always be having a good time as we mere mortals pick and choose which domains we can afford.  Hell, we all want XYZ.com  but that would take our entire bankroll.

6. The guy that you’ll be friends with a long time. There’s always at least one person you meet at a conference that you just click with.  You’re gonna meet someone you’ll either do business with in the future or just bounce off ideas.  I met 5 or 6 guys I talk to regularly.

7. A new perspective of a person you know through online but never met in person. It can be good or bad, but you get a better feel of a person when you meet them in person.  Guys that you think are pretty cool won’t give you the time of day or on the contrary, someone like Ron Jackson, who people say is the nicest guy in domain and after you meet him in person, realize that they absolutely telling the truth.

8.  Free swag. Companies love to give away stuff.   In Vegas, Dot co gave away the greatest metal notebook I’ve ever had.  Of course, it’s the only metal notebook I’ve ever had.  I barely could get it home through security.

9.  Good and Bad Presenters: There’s no doubt that everyone on that stage knows their stuff.  Inevitably a few of them are nervous as hell.  They do this for living they just don’t present for a living and it comes across.  It’s good for them to practice and you just have to listen a little closer to mine the data out of their talks.  You really want nervous, go to the Test Track.  I had to look at my feet during a few of them because I felt so bad

10.  The feeling of “Glad you went” A professional only needs one good contact, piece of advice or knowledge to pay for a conference.  That little bit will easily pay for your whole trip.  Add in the friends and the fun and you’ll want to make it back.  And with all the conferences each year you’ll certainly be able to find one.