SES Toronto Speaker Development

25 years ago, Canada repatriated its Constitution. And today, I'm proud to say, the fourth ever Search Engine Strategies conference held in this country is going to be chaired by a Canadian. That's me. More about me: I was born in Toronto and lived in several cities in Ontario including Ottawa, Sarnia, and suburban Toronto, before attending the University of Toronto and York University. So I've been here in TO the better part of 20 years.

I'm one of those lucky enough to have visited every Canadian province (except Saskatchewan). My family used to spend summers camping out east. At one point in my graduate student career, I got to visit a lot of campuses right across the country. That was cool. It whetted my appetite for the rubber chicken circuit!

I used to be reasonably bilingual (and am a Montreal Canadiens fan), but the Toronto location didn't do any favors at all for my French. I can understand you if you're from France and you're talking slowly about fermenting grapes. ;)

But enough about me. If you're a part of this fast-growing industry, and you want to be considered for a speaking slot at Search Engine Strategies Toronto 2007, June 12-13, please consult the conference-at-a-glance for topics (descriptions to follow very shortly). 60% of speaking slots have been assigned based on repeat invites and my recruitment efforts to this point. If you see a panel topic to which you'd be likely to make a unique contribution to enliven our fast-growing marketing community (but more importantly, to enlighten the audience), here's the drill:

* The pitch window is now open. It closes Thursday May 3 at 6:00 p.m. Eastern.

* Only pitch on topics that are on the program. Tell me what panel your specific pitch is for. Send two or three if you wish.

* 2-6 paragraphs should be sufficient; add a bit about your background, credentials, or past speaking experience if I don't know you.

* Send the pitch to my email address at page-zero.com. This would be my first name, followed by the at symbol, at said domain name. A subject heading like "SES Toronto 2007 speaking" would help.

To those who have run into me and verbally discussed slots, or who have received exploratory emails, some of you are indeed confirmed already. But I don't mind if you send me a reminder email asking for further details and confirmation.

Next week the preliminary list of confirmed speakers will be posted. By May 10, the final program will be posted. If you didn't make it onto the program, sorry! It's not a long program and we are emphasizing a couple of new areas, and making plenty of room for local speakers. As a result, there is a high ratio of proposals to available slots.

Finally: how Canadian is this show anyway? There will be an appropriate degree of timely local content, to be sure. But I don't consider myself a "Canadian marketer," personally. I'm a marketer who happens to be Canadian. So the overall approach is that this is one of four full-fledged SES Conferences in North America. There is something for everyone.