The Domain Conference - It Was Awesome!

Just to let you know, I’m writing this blog from 30,000 feet. I’m about an hour from Melbourne airport after travelling for twenty-four hours from “The Domain Conference” in Fort Lauderdale. My body feels like it’s been put through the ringer and my brain feels a little mushy (see above picture - LOL!) so you’ll have to excuse me if it doesn’t contain any epiphanies.

For a start, the conference, as normal, was an outstanding success. It’s not as big as NamesCon but a lot of the right people were in attendance. I don’t mean to insult anyone but stupid people judge a conference by numbers of attendees……I judge a conference on the level of business conducted. I’ve returned with easily enough to keep me busy until the end of the year.

If you really want to accelerate your business growth, then taking the opportunity to attend every domaining event is mandatory. I often find the same people that say they will attend and then don’t are the same people that complain in the forums about the downturn in the domain industry. Go figure? You reap what you sow……make the effort to reach out to people at events and don’t be surprised if you suddenly start selling domains and finding other opportunities.

I met so many great people at “The Domain Conference”. From hedge fund managers (yep, they have heaps to invest) right through to registries who are doing some awesome deals. What I find the most beneficial is just hanging out with other entrepreneurs who are hungry to throw some ideas around.

People like Colin Campbell from dot club are simply incredible and over the years we’ve developed a great friendship. He shared the dot club story with a lot of personal anecdotes in a session and it was awesome.

The CEO of Sedo, Tobias Flaitz, did a keynote speech that was really a call to action for the whole industry to work together and grow the pie rather than fight amongst each other. It was a great inspirational talk from someone that I highly respect as one of the leaders in the industry.

David Warmuz and I had a fantastic time sharing with the attendees in the session I participated in. We went through a monetisation masterclass on the benefits of traffic optimisation and in the process we looked at a number of case studies.

A real highlight for me was when Howard Neu, the conference convener, was brought to tears when he thanked Barbara, his wife, for all the effort she made to make the conference a success. As Barbara came forward to embrace her husband the entire room spontaneously gave her and Howard a standing ovation. It really displayed the high level of esteem all the attendees hold for the Neu’s.

Over more than a decade I’ve seen both Howard and Barbara working so hard to make each and every conference they’re involved in a great success. There’s nothing quite like being greeted by Barbara’s smiling face after traveling all the way from Australia.

It was great catching up with Jackson Elsegood from Escrow.com and hear about some of the new things that Escrow is launching. Lorianne Wardi did a riveting keynote on her journey with .co and now Neustar. Veteran advertising network leader, Joe Casale, came with his wife and promoted a new service that I know ParkLogic will be integrating. Stevan Lieberman shared some of the intricacies of UDRPs and I really appreciated the time we spent together. And the list goes on and on…..all quality people who are more than willing to share their expertise and look for opportunities together.

I'm already looking forward to next years conference.....even if the flight from Australia to Ft Lauderdale takes 26 hours. Beats the heck out of me why some local domainers can't drive 15 minutes. You've really got to wonder if they want to still be in the domaining business or not.