Leadscon 2009 Wrapup
Nickycakes is finally back home after spending a week in Vegas for Leadscon followed by a week in southern cali.
Leadscon was held at the Mirage Hotel on March 4th and 5th. Nicky had never been to the Mirage so didn’t really know what to expect, especially for only $100 per night for a room. The hotel ended up being great. Having been forced into the Rio for Affiliate Summit, the Mirage was a welcome change for sure. Just walking in, there is an enormous saltwater fishtank behind the check-in counter. Huge like xbox. The rooms were really awesome, especially Nicky’s which had a brand new bathroom with jacuzzi bath and stuff as well as an amazing view of the Mirage pool below.
At night, it also had an amazing view of the hotels on the strip:
So yeah, much better than staying off the strip at Affiliate Summit.
Nickycakes arrived a few days early to enjoy the Vegas weather and other fine things the city has to offer. Okay, more like 4 days early, but who’s counting? The weather was great (compared to boston anyway) and a giant snowstorm hit the northeast a few hours after the flight got in the air. Nicky promptly gloated on twitter.
Days before the conference:
Well, as to be expected, these were mostly full of Nickycakes and his friends gambling a lot. The Cakes was introduced to and quickly fell in love with the game of craps, which is highly recommended to anyone looking for an exciting casino game that requires pretty much no thinking, moves really fast, and has pretty fair odds compared to most everything else on the casino floor (especially the fcking slots). Nicky also was able to catch a show called Le Reve which is indescribable. You really have to see it for yourself. Do yourself a favor and get tickets next time you’re in the city.
The first night, Nicky and friends also caught up with friend Chris Armstrong from Van Komen Media (the masterminds behind Ultra Lean Green Tea, for those who remember the offer, as well as many current offers). Chris invited Cakes and crew to come to Salt Lake City and catch a Jazz game…more on that later.
Conf Day 1:
Due mostly to jetlag, Nicky woke up at the crack of 8:30am and was able to make it downstairs in time for the Leadscon keynote. Ok, seriously, Nickycakes has been to some keynotes at conferences. They have ALL been AWFUL. Usually they are either an advertisement, like the stupid keynotes at PPC summit were advertisements, and Gary V at affiliate summit…good lord, just end yourself guy. But anyway, the keynote at leadscon was AWESOME. It was by Dan Ariely, a Behavioral Economist, and author of the bestselling book “Predictably Irrational.” The dude was the victim of an explosion at one point which left 70% of his body covered in 3rd degree burns. He spent like 3 years in the hospital recovering, which alone makes him a total badass. Dan went through so much pain during his treatment, especially from the retarded nurses yanking off bandages and whatnot, that he went on to study how to make painful treatments better. Since the nurses had always done things the way they had done them (ripping off bandages from burn victims as fast as possible instead of slowly and less painfully) they were set in their ways and wouldn’t accept (irrationally) the idea that there was a better way of doing things. After realizing this, Dan then branched out and applied what he had learned to other areas, especially behavioral economics.
The keynote went into tons of really brilliant ideas about how customers react to certain things, and ways to increase sales/leads/whatever by simply rewording or restructuring an offer. Why do some european countries have a 10% organ donor rate and others have a 99% rate? Because the drivers license forms for the 10% country are opt-in, and the 99% are opt-out. Most of his ideas stemmed from the idea that people hate having to make complicated decisions for themselves (by complicated, he means like…3 or more choices, or choices that have a large impact on their lives), and that they will do pretty much whatever is suggested to them. Really really interesting and relevant stuff, and made the conference worth every penny ($0 for nickycakes since they were nice enough to hook him up with a press pass, but would have been worth the full price anyway).
The exhibit hall, however, left much to be desired, from the shoes of an affiliate anyway. The conference was really not geared towards affilaites at all really, and it probably wasn’t intended to be. There were several affiliate networks in attendance, of course, and a lot of people there that Nickycakes knew, but if you’re looking for a wide variety of companies that would be beneficial to meet with as an affiliate, Affiliate Summit and Ad:Tech have the market cornered. It is, however, just the 2nd year of Leadscon, and they were able to pull in a registration of over 100o people, which seems like quite an accomplishment. The lunch they served in the exhibit hall was pretty good though, and Nicky was able to meet up with his friends Wes and Steven from Tracking202 as well as Jivan from Advaliant.
Night 1:
As mentioned earlier, Chris from VK invited Nicky and crew to Utah to come see a Jazz game. Not only invited, but booked the tickets and everything. Nicky and his boy hopped on a plane in the afternoon, took the hour flight to SLC, where Chris rolled up in the Range and drove to the game. Van Komen has a nice suite in the stadium, fully catered and everything. Dinner and a game were awesome. Got to see Yao Ming’s oafy ass get steamrolled by Utah. Good times. Here are a few pics:\
Cakes and John with some of the Jazz cheerleaders before the game:
Cakes in the VK Suite:
VK has a sick guest house…or mansion or whatever, the place is huge, and on the side of a mountain in Utah. An awesome place to spend the night for sure. It snowed overnight, and waking up the whole place was covered in an inch or two of snow. Really beautiful, even for someone who lives in new england and sees snow all over everything for like 8 months out of the year. Imagine waking up to this every day:
Anyway, Chris came and drove to the airport early morning for a quick flight back to Vegas for the rest of Leadscon.
Day 2:
Pretty much like day 1 except Nicky spent it all networking and hanging out with business friends.
Speaking of networking, let’s talk for a second about bluetooth guy. Bluetooth guy is not just one person, but several people, who always have their bluetooth headset in their ears. Don’t get it twisted, bluetooth headsets are great, especially while driving, or at home, in the office, whatever. But seriously, you don’t need to wear your bluetooth. The first “bluetooth guy” Nickycakes met was Jason H from Eclipse at ASW 08. That dude was all over the place all night at every party rockin a jawbone like it was princess cut ear bling. Hopefully he just forgot to take it out or something, but all night? Doubtful.
Ok, and then we have Geoff from Revstars. Nickycakes first ran into Geoff (not geoff from advaliant) on the Advaliant fishing trip at ASE in Boston. He wore a bluetooth headset the entire time..while fishing…on a boat. He did catch the first fish, though, so maybe it was good luck. Then at Ad:Tech NY he was spotted again walking around all day wearing the bluetooth. And once again at ASW, rocking the bluetooth. And whaddya know…leadscon…bluetooth. Here’s a pic:
When asked about it, he said it was cause he couldn’t hear his phone in his pocket, but seriously that’s what vibrate is for man! Geoff is a really cool guy though, and the revstars people were all keepin it real at Leadscon. They look like a pretty solid network. Just the bluetooth all the time makes you want to ::facepalm::.
There was also some good sushi to be had at Nobu that night.
Night 2:
There was a party at Pure nightclub in Caesars. The club was kinda cool, but, as expected, it was a total sausage fest. All 3 girls in the industry were there, each surrounded by about 20 nerds dancing to YMCA.
Conclusion:
Leadscon was fun. The keynote was amazing. The exhibit hall left much to be desired. The conference seemed like it didn’t have much to offer an individual affiliate. But overall well worth the trip. Would go again, and probably will. Thank you to Jay and crew for the pass. Nickycakes wishes he could have thanked you in person.
Keep it real.
I recently bought Ariely’s book and finished it in no time. I highly recommend it, especially for the marketing and business applications. If he were selling that as an ebook/newb guide, it would go for $200 on the cheap end, and that would still be good value. Finished it in no time flat, and can’t wait to start applying it.
Another vote for Ariely’s book, you can get it on CD and there’s a ton of info in it that is applicable to affiliate.
Sounds like Leadscon was fun… nice to hear they actually had a solid keynote as well.
Nice! I’ll have to check that out next year. Looks great.
welcome back to bean town. i guess you can kinda be happy that its the first day of spring.