Think Visibility is a web conference with speakers both local and from afar. This was the first time I had attended such a conference and as this was only the second time Think Visibility has been held, it feels good to be part of something new and up-coming. There was a mixed bag of talent with a running theme of web marketing/SEO/blogging and the like, and the conference ran from morning ’til evening.
The show kicked off at 10am with a Dutch speaker named Mr. Joost de Valk, best known for his blog Yoast which specialises in Wordpress articles and plug ins. Having little knowledge of the technical aspects of blogging, I found some of his ideas, and his passion for the subject quite refreshing, if a little controversial. I was also very pleased to hear that he blogs purely for the passion of it, and not for the direct monetary gains he could easily receive from his popular blog.
Next up was probably my favourite speaker of the day; Julian Sambles from the Telegraph. The reason I connected with his presentation was because I empathise all too well at the cultural changes that demand dramatic shifts in thinking within an organisation. The telegraph, traditionally being a printed publication only, was tasked with bringing it’s online presence further into the public eye, and this meant a lot of work had to be done to achieve this. It was very interesting listening to the research that was undertaken in order to improve their website readership; the subtleties of web copywriting, the embrace of social media and the delve into complex SEO. I had a quick chat with him after his talk to understand a little deeper the impact this cultural change had on the company, to which he hinted that, of course, some of the staff found it harder to embrace than others.
Next to take the stage was a Canadian lady (not American as presumed!), Judith Lewis, giving her thoughts on SEO, specifically the optimisation of video, within Google. Quite obviously addicted to chocolate, this played a running theme throughout her presentation and she even handed out two large tins of chocolates that quietly made their way around the room. I use the term “quietly” in the loosest sense because the crackling sounds of 100 people opening chocolate wrappers almost simultaneously was a little distracting. Judith’s talk was of only mild interest to me personally, but it did emphasise the need for small businesses to utilise as many avenues as possible when boosting their presence in the search engines.
Lunch comprised of sandwiches and cookies. Unfortunately I was one of the last ones to the buffet table so I was left with the scratty pieces of egg mayo sandwiches and unappealing bits of leaf (boooo!), but I more than made up for the lack of food with the tea and coffee which was flowing all day.
Amazingly, the staff at the venue transformed one room into three, before our very eyes! The partitions were up and three speakers filled the next hour, one in each room. I chose to watch Fiona Thomson’s talk on “Debunking the F-Pattern”. This was incredibly interesting, despite the actual slides being littered with spelling mistakes (I’m such a critic…), the subject matter was enthralling. She demonstrated the concept of eye-tracking for usability, and attempted to contradict the theory of the F-Pattern (Google it), which she did quite nicely. She played videos of recorded eye-tracking sessions and it’s amazing to see how quickly users scan your pages taking in mostly just the bits that stand out. You can see more about what her company does here.
After a quick coffee, I returned to the same room to watch Tom Smith, who had probably the quirkiest take on social media I have ever seen. His slides comprised of hand drawn images which illustrated the dynamics behind a website’s usage, and presence, within the social spectrum. It was quite a fresh idea; to break down existing websites in this way he could understand how his own work can take advantage of social media platforms. Tom sounded quite excitable and often tripped over his own words due to machine gunning them out so quickly, but this gave the presentation more edge and definitely added a sense of humour and personality. I think if I am going to take anything away from Think Visibility, his methods of breaking down the concept of social media will probably be it.
Next and after more tea and coffee I moved across to the central room which featured a talk by Zoe Piper. I had very briefly met Zoe earlier in the morning and she seemed a little nervous about giving her presentation (which is obviously quite natural) and it didn’t help that she was not allowed to be mic’d up because this would cause noise interference with the other two rooms. Her presentation focused on Google’s ad content network, and how to create an effective campaign. It’s clear she know’s her stuff but if there is one thing I disagreed with it’s parked domains which I consider to be pretty useless for the user (despite being probably quite profitable for the owner). I particularly liked the pictures of cats which randomly appeared between slides, this added a lot of personality to the presentation and, despite being more of a dog person, definitely created the “aww” factor!
Zoe’s talk was only 30 mins long due to a lack of questions from the audience – this is not particularly my area so I had nothing to contribute – so after another coffee I moved across to Karyn Fleeting’s talk on corporate blogging. As I only caught the last 25 minutes of this, I can’t give much of a review, but her presentation looked the nicest (visually) of the day and I completely agree about too many cooks spoiling the broth, i.e. too many writers for a single blog.
By the end of this talk, things took a dramatic turn for the worse; I was actually seeing black spots due to the excessive caffeine intake, and had a headache that could probably slay a walrus (okay, maybe just a baby walrus, but a walrus none the less). This meant that I had to leave early and miss the speaker I was most looking forward to seeing, Artur Ortega; a blind software engineer for Yahoo! Europe. I was particularly excited to hear what somebody in his position had to say on accessibility, as this is something that both intrigues and deceives me in equal measures.
I would also have liked to join in with the after show drinking sesh that took place in Leeds City Inn, after suffering sobriety for over a week I could have done with a dozen or so cold beers!
All that remains is for me to say a thank you to the organisers and all the speakers – it was an incredibly professional, well-organised and more importantly, informative event that I will definitely be attending again!
Picture taken by sk8geek 
As any successful business will tell you; planning is key to success. It’s never too early to start thinking about your future strategies, and what better time to put some new ideas into practice than over the Christmas/New Year period?
