SES Chicago Preview and Shameless Self-Promotion

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It's hard to believe that SES Chicago is right around the corner. Crikey, where did this year go?

I'm really excited about this show, not only because I'm hosting an awesome session (hey, they don't call Chicago the Windy City for nuthin'!) but because the Day 1 and 2 keynotes are from authors I really respect.

Day 1 features Jeff Jarvis who wrote What Would Google Do? -- a book I have yet to read but was reminded about after I wrote my Search Insider column, Everything I Need to Know About Marketing I Learned From Google, and have since followed on Twitter and found his outspoken nature highly entertaining.

It appears Jeff and I share the point-of-view that Google has created a new world order and, just as his book is the guide for companies seeking to understand the new rules of the business game in a Google universe, I'm penning what I hope will be the guide for companies wanting to learn lessons from Google related to marketing.

Visit LearnFromGoogle.com to find out more about my book (I'm very close to signing on with a major publisher) and submit your email to be notified when the it's released -- which is looking like Fall 2010, just in time for next year's SES Chicago keynote. *cough, cough* Ahem, Mike, Stew, Matt, Marilyn, et al. *cough* Are you reading this? ;)

The Day 2 keynote is Peter Morville who's book, Ambient Findability, was an inspiration for me and led to this series I wrote for MediaPost...

What Role Does Personalization Play In a World of Ambient Findability?

Should We Fear Ambient Findability?

The Quotable Ambient Findability

As for my session, I'll be moderating a deep dive into the intersection of search and social -- a topic I've been following closely for some time. See this post for my most recent musings -- Search and Social: Wherein Lies the Truth?

Below is the session overview. More detail follows...

Day 1: Mon. 12/7
4:30-5:30

Search on the Edge Track
What's the Link Between Search and Social?
Every day the lines between search and social media become blurrier and blurrier. Twitter, for example, can be used as a "social network" to communicate with friends or a "search engine" to ask for recommendations from experts. And Facebook now allows people to search the content of status updates. So how can marketers and agencies best organize their assets to leverage the synergies between search and social? In this panel discussion, we'll learn how brand marketers are managing their presence across these converging channels. And we'll explore how future search algorithms will incorporate the social graph and how social networks will use PageRank and HITS methodologies. We'll also discover the inner workings new real-time search engines. And we'll hear how leading social networks are thinking about using search to improve monetization.

Moderator:
Aaron Goldman, Managing Partner, Connectual

Speakers:
Marshall Clark, Group Director, Search, Organic, Inc.
Tobias Peggs, General Manager, OneRiot
Brian Boland, Manager, Performance Solutions, Facebook
Bryan Simkins, Marketing Specialist, FedEx

In terms of format, we're looking at doing brief presentations and then moderated Q&A before opening it up to audience questions. Here's what I've asked from each of the panelists to prepare for their 10 minutes of deck-time...

Marshall - Give us your Page Rank for People dissertation.

Tobias - What is a real-time search engine? How does it work? What makes its results more impactful for searchers?

Brian - How is Facebook thinking about search? What's the rationale for indexing people's status updates? How will search results be monetized beyond Bing syndication? What's the potential for search results based on the social graph?

Bryan - What experience does FedEx have playing in the search and social space? Can you share a case study? Or at least some key challenges you've encountered and key learnings?

And here are my thought-starters for the Q&A portion...

How can marketers best organize their assets to capitalize on the opportunities in search and social?

What's the role of the agency in search and social?

Thoughts on Bing's Twitter integration?

Thoughts on Google's new social search features?

What does the future hold for these platforms?

Wish we had another hour for this session as I'm sure we won't get to all of these threads. What else would you like to see covered?

What are you most looking forward to at SES Chicago?

Still have yet to register? What are you waiting for? Click here and use this SES Chicago promo code for 20% off: 20SPG

Update 12/16: In case you missed my session at SES Chicago, I posted the 4 decks from my panelists under "Search and Social: See You at the Crossroads."