The booths have been broken down and packed away. The crowds have thinned to the point where walking through the expansive great hallway is a pleasurable experience instead of one that almost induces panic. The last three seminars are winding down and talk throughout the Hilton conference center revolves around last minute deal making and catching rides to one of the three major airports in the New York region.

ad:Tech NYC 2006 is over for another year and if the rapid fire deal making, button-holing and strategic huddles were any indication, this was an enormously successful conference.

The heavy rain which has been falling since early Tuesday night has pushed most flights back putting many crucial connections at risk. That's ironic given that most of the attendees are here to make crucial connections. They better have made them early because right now, New York is quickly flooding and the rain, like everything else in Manhattan is heavier than anything you've ever seen before. Reports out of Newark suggest anyone heading to the airport on the Jersey shore is likely to see more water than shore. The lower parking level and pedestrian pathway to the main terminal is apparently under a few feet of water.

Whatever the water, the show was a success. Nothing succeeds like success and the success of ad:Tech is its greatest strength but also its newest weakness. The conference has greatly outgrown the venue. As professional as the staff of the Uptown Hilton may be, there was no possible way to prepare for the waves of humans (and their technology) in attendance. Estimates of the attendance numbers ranged into the tens of thousands with eleven thousand marking the lowest estimate and twenty five thousand as the highest. I intend to get around to finding out from the registration desk but never find the chance. It was always too crowded.

ad:Tech is all about the deal. Drawing C-level executives and entrepreneurs from all sectors of the online marketing spectrum, ad:Tech is a place to meet, greet and glad hand your future partner. In one such pairing, Mr. Affiliate Marketer came to New York to meet Ms. Traffic Arbitrager, hoping for a solid uptown Manhattan marriage where an NDA with a non-compete clause forms the initial pre-nuptial agreement. Similarly, Hosting firm A came to the Hilton to hook up with Content Aggregator B. As with all business arrangements, nothing happens until people get together. That's what ad:Tech is all about. That's why we're here, period. Come to think of it, there is a better than even chance that the job you enjoy today sprang from connections made at this or a similar event.

Such is the way things happen in the tech world. You gotta be there to get there. Once there, one is judged on the skills, intelligence, talent and resources one can bring to the party. If you have a fair mix of three of these four traits, you should walk away a very happy techie. There is a mystical fifth element, one that cannot be underestimated. Lady Luck and Sister Serendipity sometimes play a determining role in making the right people meet each other at the right moment. It's uncanny but it's real.

As organic as it might seem while on the floor, one doesn't come to these events without a well considered plan. Time is money and is therefore at a premium with interest. There are only so many hours in a working day, at least twenty of which should be spent in meetings. People meet over coffee, have meetings over supper, meet at the innumerable booths or find time to meet while waiting in line. A new Broadway musical designed for the conference crowd could be titled, Meetings O're Manhattan. A Woody Allen film might be called More Meetings Over My Dead Body. Thing is, you are not allowed to be dead or even look slightly tired, not until after the last meeting at any rate. There is simply too much to do here to waste time being tired of mind or dead on one's feet. Adrenaline, by the way, can carry a body and soul when physical strength feels exhausted. Opportunity is always exciting but there is a heavy physical price to pay for staying on the edge of your stamina for so many days.

ad:Tech Survival Tips 1, 2 & 3: Get lots of sleep the week before the conference. Eat well and conserve your strength while the conference is in session. By the time the last session ends, you are going to need every ounce of expendable energy in order to ensure you have enough mental juice to get to the airport on time.

Of all the online marketing conferences, ad:Tech is the most business oriented. Some shows, like the Search Engine Strategies Conference held last summer in San Jose are about the information sessions, socializing and partying. WebmasterWorld's PubCon events are about building and celebrating success, socializing, partying and growing the scene. While there were several fabulous parties each night, this ad:Tech was primarily a networking event like none other in the industry.

Oh the deals being made. One of the most intriguing facets of the online marketing industry is that, for the most part, nothing is impossible.

Need more file space on a 99.999 server? Not a problem.

Do you require a totally tricked-out content management system? If you have the cash, you can find it at any one of a dozen booths on one of the four floors this expansive show sprawls over.

Have you figured out how to best build your site to maximize conversions? There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of consultants who would be happy to tell you how they would do it for you. Look down that hallway there or up that escalator or over in one of the two packed pubs. Someone is there to sell you a service.

Need a network of sophisticated click-bots to attempt to fool Google or YSM? What colour do want them to come in? Khaki and camouflage appear to be among the more popular colours this year.

If it can be coded, deployed and used to make a lot of money, you can find it here. Every talent from programming to public relations is in attendance and, as I suggested earlier, the attendance has broken all previous records.

Braking records is good. Breaking other stuff is not so good. Nevertheless, everything gets broken. Decay is the ultimate rule of the universe. There is no way to avoid it. Everything that goes up must come down and that appears to include the WiFi network which went up and down like a Yoyo until the string apparently broke. No matter how often the show's extremely patient tech staff worked in the control panels of our machines, or how much they reset the network, nothing moved in or out of that part of the building unless it was attached to a hard wire.

What does a reporter do when figuring out how to file when the closest useful connection is forty stories above where the stories are actually happening? Wing it and hope it flies. To be honest, there isn't much one can do about flakey WiFi except to find a way to work around the problem. Issues are going to happen and the apt learn to adapt. When the going gets tough, the tough figure a way to hack a connection. Working at the top of this industry is tough and there are a lot of tough people here working at the top of their game.

ad:Tech Survial Tips 4 & 5 – It's not personal, it's business. So what if that last person dissed your back-end technology. The rejection comes from someone who does not enjoy the benefit of time to think clearly. The honesty was real but, chances are, they did not intend to be rude. One needs to keep in mind that there are hundreds of opportunities offered every day at these events. Decision makers have less than a minute per opportunity to weight the merits of your business plan or technology. Once that minute has passed, they either have to move on or start thinking about making a deal. There is only so much time in any given day but any feelings of rejection should be mollified with the realistic expectation that someone else is about to walk around the corner.

Walking in this city is almost as difficult as walking the halls of a conference center filled past the bursting point. This is New York. You gotta problem with dat bud?

There is a beautiful symmetry to the anarchic chaos that rules the streets in this tough town. It takes a bit of getting used to, especially for those of us from gentler climes like the west coast. Buses, cabs, cars, cops or pedicabs might stop in the middle of the road. No one cares, they adjust to the new reality. No big whoop buddy but hey, I'm walking here so whaddya think you're doin?

New York Moment #52

HONK!!!! The cabbie's horn jolts you awake as you stumble across E16th. It's late, or maybe it is early, it really depends on which side of the pillow you're contemplating the alarm clock from. No, there is no avoiding the brutal reality of the situation. It is far too late and like the other dummies leaving the club, you have to get up tomorrow and have an important meeting over breakfast. The blackjack or poker is over and you lost. There can be only one winner and since you are out here walking across the street with me, chances are pretty good it isn't you. Poor Score dude, perhaps you should have tried the Crowbar. Thousands of dollars are being given away to the winner of whatever is being played over there but you and I are over here. No big whoop bud, I was just making conversation. Watch out for that cab, it could kill ya.

Conversations turn towards conversion. Its revival hour in the church of Internet marketing and Jim Sterne has taken stage in one of the main seminar rooms. All the seats are taken leaving standing room only. Sterne has the crowd in his hands. It is easy to tell the difference between the professionals and those who simply want to be like the professionals. Sterne has his speech down to a fine rhythm, having delivered a variation on the same theme on three previous occasions.

The powerpoint slides are totally in sync with the script. Thing is, there is no script, just Jim's fine sense of timing. Jim Sterne is the closest thing this continent has to the UK's usability expert, Jakob Nielsen, the exception being he will use powerpoint where Nielsen is said to intensely dislike the format.

"The key to success is knowing what success is," says Sterne as he warms the room with wisdom. Sterne is about to deliver one of the best speeches of the conference and I have to interview him directly afterwards for WebmasterRadio and SiteProNews. When he comes down from the stage and gets past the half-dozen marketers waiting to ask him questions, he is floating on the speakers' high, a feeling brought about by doing a damn good job on stage. I introduce myself to Jim and to his publicist. We shake hands and start moving towards the escalators. Jim Sterne has to move quickly. He has to catch a plane to the UK where he is scheduled to appear with his trans-Atlantic counterpart Jakob.

Rushing through a tech crowd with a known figure like Jim Sterne is a lesson in avoidance. Avoid the crush, avoid those who might have seen him doing one of his presentations, avoid being late for the interview. The WebmasterRadio booth is four floors above us and at the other end of the convention center. We have a few minutes to spare but, given how long it takes to get from one end of this overcrowded space to the other, we need to burn shoe leather and take a few "shortcuts" I have discovered, including the one through the service kitchen that runs between two packed hallways. We make it in time but with seconds to spare and the interview, while somewhat breathless, goes extremely well. Sterne leaves the booth with a smile on his face and a long flight to catch.

After Jim Sterne moves on, the mayhem begins afresh. It is Tuesday and ad:Tech is rolling strong. There are even more people here today than there were yesterday. As the day progresses, a story I have been working on for months begins to develop like a tsunami. This isn't just any story either. It is explosive, dangerous and potentially transformative for wide sections of the industry. Suddenly everything else ceases to exist, except for the details of the story. There are a few scheduled interviews I had to blow off (politely, of course) in order to pursue leads and confirm sources. For me, the conference part of ad:Tech ended the moment this story came together.

Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to write about the story, not today at any rate. A grouping of lawyers (what do you call a grouping of lawyers, a suit?) is reviewing the material and verifying that I in fact did verify my sources. From about 3PM Tuesday until somewhere way beyond midnight, an eight person team was vetting the story, reviewing the tapes and debating the finer points of how to run the story. A sense of dramatic purpose hung in the hotel room in a scene that could have come from a movie script.

There's not much more to write and so much more that happened. My next entries will be write-ups stemming from the ten or so interviews I completed with various firms.

ad:Tech stands among THE MUST ATTEND conferences and I truly hope to see you there next year. I wonder if Madison Square Gardens is available.

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