26 replies to this topic

[redsonia!]

I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the HR Seminar in Minneapolis. It was great to meet some of the people I knew from the forum. You did a great job! Jill, Scottie, Christine, Karon, Matt, and the two Lees - You rock!

I was actually pleasantly surprised to find out that I knew about everything that was presented on the first day. (Gee, maybe I'm no longer a Newbie?!) Reading the forum faithfully for the last 2 years has actually taken!

The second day, I learned a lot of good info. I didn't know very much about social media, so that was all rather new. The Cool Tools was super! I enjoyed the copywriting session, gotta lot of good info there. The PPC session was great, it will definitely help save me some money. Scottie's Usability session was also super. And the site reviews were extremely helpful. It was very enlightening to see what was done incorrectly (and how to correct it) and what was done well. Since I'm still finishing my site redesign I'm going to incorporate a few things I learned. I actually had already done a custom 404 page similar to the example shown. (I patted myself on the back when I saw that presented!)

And the suggestions from everyone, speakers and attendees, were really helpful. I have a whole list of things to do, now. Now I just have to find time to actually implement them!

Anyway, it was a great seminar. Definitely worth the money! (I am really looking forward to the freebies! The free month of KeyWord Discovery is FANTASTIC! I can't wait! And I'll use ClickTracks on my new site when it goes live. Gotta get those metrics. Right, Matt?)

I hope you all didn't freeze while you were here in Minneapolis. If you had been here 2 days sooner it was in the 60's. At least it wasn't blizzarding!

Anyway, it was great to meet all of you. (Except I missed meeting Matt. Couldn't catch up with him anywhere). Thanks for all the help. Super conference.

[Jill]

Thanks Redsonia, it was nice to finally meet you also!

We were very pleased with this seminar. It was our largest group ever, but also one of the best! All of us commented on how all the people of MN are sooooooo nice! (We did have a very big local crowd this time.)

We'll be sending all the names and email addresses of those who wanted the free month of Keyword Discovery into Trellian this week, so watch your email for your login info!

[redsonia!]

By any chance did any of you get to the Mall of America? I know it sounds like some of you were trying to get back home before weather got bad on your end. I just wanted to hear some of your escapades if you did get there. (You always seem to have some good stories when it comes to trying to get around new towns.)

[Scottie]

Heheh- we do seem to!

I'm glad you liked the seminar Redsonia- we had a good time too.

We didn't make it to the Mall of America; actually we never really left downtown. But man, we didn't need to! We had two awesome meals (at places whose names I can't remember right now) that were within walking distance. Fire River Grill... I think.. and an Italian place that was very ornate and the food was sooo good.

So much for my diet! Will have to work harder this week.

The only mishap we ran into was changing planes in Chicago... there were 2 extra people with nowhere to sit because the plane was completely booked. We'd all had our boarding passes checked at the gate, again on the tarmac, then again by the flight attendant. So, how bizarre is it that they found the 2 extra people were not supposed to be on our plane at all?

They had a later flight, but no one had checked the times.

[copywriter]

I think the Italian place started with a "Z" maybe. It was awesome! And the Fire Lake Grill (?) at the Radisson Hotel was fabulous too. The Local (Irish Pub) was so-so.

Redsonia, it was great having lunch with you on Friday. Glad to have you at the table. And, everyone will be impressed to find out, Redsonia is a professor of anatomy and other such high-falutin' things! All of the sudden I didn't feel so smart in the presence of someone so accomplished

Kate... thanks again for the chocolate and your kind words. It was great to meet you in person, too.

It was a great seminar. It was cold, but with my long underwear, coat, gloves, boots and layers, I managed to make the trek to and from the restaurant each night. I'm used to lows in the 30s during winter, not highs. Scottie and I left a 78 degree day on Wednesday when we flew to MN. Glad to be back, although it's only 70-75 this week

I think Scottie forgot the other little "mishap" on the plane when we left Chicago. A toddler that had a major oops in his diaper during our taxi to the runway!!! What a mess! What a smell! They got him cleaned up and the flight attendant quickly double-bagged the nastiness and took it away. That was not a good experience.

Other than that, everything went smoothly with flights. Really, no funny stories this go round. But, as Scottie said, we all didn't leave the hotel for very long so our ability to cause mayhem was rather stifled

[Jill]

Here are some photos from the High Rankings® Seminar.

[HorseCove]

Minneapolis was a fun conference. It was great meeting everyone and spending time with them. I was really tickled at our lunch table on the second day. We were so engaged in conversation and we didn't notice EVERYONE had left the lunch room but us..... We were almost late getting back.

I uploaded a few pictures on Flickr. I was disappointed that more didn't come out. Next time I'm going to take twice as many. Somehow Lee Odden completely escaped my camera lens, so he's in trouble in New York. ;-)

Christine

[Jill]

Chris I think some of those pics I linked to above are yours. We probably have some more on Pauline's camera and Lee L's as well. Will see if I can get them to upload them somewhere. I think we actually got a lot of pics for a change!

[HorseCove]

Chris I think some of those pics I linked to above are yours.

They are...I tagged them with "highrankingsseminar" for easy pickup.

Glad to hear others took some pictures....a lot of mine were blurry.


Christine

[Guss]

It's true what they say...Jill and her crew tell everything you need to know to optimize your website. There were even valuable nuggets of information for people who have been in the business a while.

Thank you for bringing your seminar to Minnesota.

Guss

[Jill]

No problem! Thanks for attending, Guss!

Please don't tell anyone else about the stuff!

[semgirl]

Great seminar you guys, it was nice to finially put a name to a face. I was actually wondering if you were planning on emailing out the electronic versions of your presentations to those that attended? I would love to be able to reference them from time to time.

[Ignoramus]

Any chance of an HR seminar in the UK ?

One major benefit - it's (almost) guaranteed flights won't get snowed in.

On the downside, your bags may end up in Moscow.

Just a thought.

[copywriter]

Yes, actually, we are planning to head to London this fall.

For those of you in Colorado, Denver is slated for June.

[Jill]

Great seminar you guys, it was nice to finially put a name to a face. I was actually wondering if you were planning on emailing out the electronic versions of your presentations to those that attended? I would love to be able to reference them from time to time.

No, we don't give out electronic versions of the presentation, sorry. But it's all in your booklet, so please do refer back to that!

As to the next seminar, it will be held June 28th and 29th at the Qwest Learning and Conference Center in Lakewood, just outside of Denver.

For the UK, we have one scheduled Oct. 2-5, but I'm not sure if those dates are finalized for sure yet.