I'm home from the Marketing Profs B2B Forum in Boston.  I have to say, I love the Marketing Profs conferences.  After speaking, writing and teaching for them since 2006, the team feels a bit like virtual family to me.They keep it real, bring in fresh, smart speakers, focus on providing real value targeted to their audience.  The value the broad array of attendees get is real and tangible.  They treat their speakers well and keep things relaxed.  So, kudos for a job well done, guys.

I met so many great folks there and was happy spending time with friends Ann Handley Mack Collier, Christina "CK" Kerley, CB Whittemore, and new friends Laurie Kingsman from Ritchie Brothers Auctions, Kate Putnam from Package Machinery Company,  Micheal Brenner from SAP,  Sam Fiorella and Brandi McCallum from Sensei Marketing, Mika Lofton, Katie Clark, Bob Knorpp  and many others.  I'm so fried right now I can't possibly list everyone.  So I will probably edit and add more people to this post later!

Gotta say, though -- one of the big highlights of the conference for me was meeting Nancy Duarte, author of "Slideology and her new book "Resonate."  Nancy is a brilliant communicator, an inspiring author and a darned nice person.  I cannot say enough about her but sufficed to say, I'm enough of a fangirl - to stick my feet in my mouth in front of her when trying to be witty. (Fortunately, she's very gracious, too.)  I bought her new book -- and I took time to read a bunch of it on the way home. It's smart and inspiring -- and ANYONE that wants to be a better communicator should read it.



The Workshop I ran at the B2B Forum was full of smart, motivated people and I was honored they attended.  Again, we did a real-time session reviewing the digital media footprints of 2 brands, distilling down some ideas for fostering a better experience within and across those digital and social properties.  We spent about 30 minutes on each brand.

I want to thank Ritchie Brothers Auctions (Global leader in Auctioneering with $3.3 BILLION in revenue) and Package Machinery Company (Machinery Leader for Consumer Packaged Goods Industry) for putting themselves in the hot seat.  The feedback from everyone was very positive and I earnestly do hope I provided the brands and the session attendees with some valuable insights.  Here are the slides:

Note: the wireframes that were provided weren't design recommendations but a visual "AFTER" idea to get the brands thinking about what could be -- what treatments might change on a few screens.

While it was a smaller crowd, I had a 35% rate of request for services from this session.  So the ROI of this gig was terrific.

Got thoughts, insights? Did you attend?  Would love your comments!