I’m triple-barreling this post, which will also serve as a reminder of the sessions I’m planning to attend.

First the survival element:

• Bring business cards, especially if you’d like to drop your name in the running to win a Wii, Xbox, gift card or other incentive the networks are offering. (also known as “offline lead generation”). If you’re selective, I’d think 30-50 business cards are enough. If you’re aggressively giving them out, leaving them on tables, etc, you’d probably need about 10 boxes (1,000 cards).
• Be warm: The weather is pretty cool at this time of the year, bring a jacket if you’re going out in the evenings
• Prep yourself: Prepare a 30 second pitch of what you do and your type of traffic generation, you’ll likely be repeating yourself walking the show floor, attending sessions, at parties, etc. Save the life story if someone is really interested, else a 15-30 second “elevator pitch/synopsis” will suffice.
• Comfortable shoes are a must: Walking shoes: wear them. Your feet will thank you at the end of the day.
• Hydrate yourself: “Las Vegas Throat” is a condition that strikes some, especially with the dry desert air and occasional shouting you’ll have to do. Drink lots of water (or honey and lemon if you can get ahold of it). Else you risk losing your voice at the end of day 1 or 2.
• Max out your carrying capacity: If you’re planning to collect schwag from every exhibitor, you might want to bring a backpack as you’re walking the halls, else you could be weighed down. I think Market Leverage might be rolling out their Cashinator machine, where you grab dollar bills in a vortex of flying money. Good for a few bucks, better for more laughs.

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If you’d like to check out the comprehensive list of sessions, check out the Affiliate Summit agenda.

For parties, Jangro’s “Party A Day” Guide.

For some recommends sessions Angel’s Top 5 ASW09 session picks.

Here’s my session and party guide:

Day 1 (Sun Jan 11 2009):

Meet Market (noon till 6pm, location: Pavilion 8-11): A 1-day meet-and-greet session. You’ll think you can breeze through this area in about an hour, but the reality is that it’ll probably be about 3 hours and you’d have barely made it through half the tables. It’s a good opportunity to talk to networks and merchants here. Also a good schwag collecting opportunity.

What’s going to take away from your Meet Marketing time is the workshop sessions which are going on concurrently.

Be sure to check out:

Affiliate Strategies for Traffic Generation and Monetization
Session 1a
Location: Classroom A – Brasilia 1-3
Time: 12:00pm-1:00pm

This is the first session of the workshop series and the one where Miles Baker, NickyCakes, Geordie Carswell and myself will be presenting. It’s intended to be an interesting and useful session for new and experienced affiliates alike. Do stop by.

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Another session at the same time is:

Advanced Approaches to Affiliate Recruiting, Training & Management
Session 1b
Location: Classroom B – Brasilia 4-7
Time: 12:00pm-1:00pm

Heather Paulson and Geno Prussakov will be presenting this session.

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Also at this time:

Affiliate Marketing in 2009
Session 1d
Location: Classroom D – Miranda 7-8
Time: 12:00pm-1:00pm

Pepperjam’s Kris Jones, PartnerCentric’s Linda Woods and M3 Mobile Marketing’s Gary Ackerman will be presenting.

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In the next time slot:

The Black Ink Session
Session 2c
Location: Classroom C – Miranda 5-6
Time: 1:30pm-2:30pm

Top affiliate Jeremy Palmer will be presenting a case study and if you’ve read his blog or been a member of the BlackInk project, you’ll know that Jeremy consistently overdelivers.

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Also in the same time slot:

The Ultimate Pitching Guide
Session 2d
Location: Classroom D – Miranda 7-8
Time: 1:30pm-2:30pm

Revenue magazine editor Lisa Picarille, SmallBizTrends editor-in-chief Anita Campbell, Jim Kukral and Help A Reporter’s Peter Shankman will be sharing media strategies.

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In the next time slot:

Automating Websites and PPC Management
Session 3a
Location: Classroom A – Brasilia 1-3
Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm

Top affiliate John Hasson will be showing a number of automation techniques he uses in his PPC and affiliate campaigns. I had a chance to interview him for the Friday Podcast this week (to be published this Friday) where he talks about putting together a 30,000 keyword campaign using a number of software tools. This’ll be an eye-opening experience for those using PPC.

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And at the same time…

Ethical Issues in Affiliate Marketing
Session 3d
Location: Classroom D – Miranda 7-8
Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm

Affiliate industry heavyweights like ABestWeb founder Haiko De Poel, ShareASale founder Brian Littleton, FlamingoWorld Connie Berg, OPM AffiliateCrew’s Chuck Hamrick, Ebates’ Paul Nichols will be taking questions relating to ethics in affiliate marketing. With the recent rise of “loyaltyware” or “parasiteware”, and affiliates and merchants seeing their commissions being intercepted/hijacked by some of these affiliates, it’ll make for an interesting session.

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ShareASale “Under The Stars” Party
Time: 8pm – midnight

A 1980s-themed party. SaS throws great parties and they’ll be giving out tickets at their Meet Market booth on Sunday.

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Day 2 (Monday, Jan 12)

Opening Remarks & Keynote
Location: General Session Room – Brasillia 1-7
Time: 9:45am – 10:45am

Keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk. I’m sure Gary will have interesting insights on branding and business building.

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Followed by the sessions:

Whitehat Linkbuilding Strategies: Beginner to Advanced
Session 4a
Location: Classroom A – Brasilia 1-3
Time: 11:30am-12:30pm

I’ve heard from Affiliate Summit co-founder Shawn Collins that Wil Reynolds consistently draws the highest speaker ratings every year. I’m sure his presentation on SEO and linkbuilding strategies will be a great one.

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In the same timeslot:

Advertising on Facebook
Session 4d
Location: Classroom D – Miranda 7-8
Time: 11:30am-12:30pm

This panel discussion will be an interesting one with a Facebook internet marketing team lead Alex Schultz, Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker, Zac Johnson and Ravenwood Marketing’s Dan Murray on the panel.

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Affiliate Videos: Where Do They Work Best?
Session 5d
Location: Classroom D – Miranda 7-8
Time: 2:00pm-3:00pm

This was a great session at ASW08 with AskABuilder’s Tim Carter, a MetaCafe rep, Gary V and Buy.com’s Affiliate Marketing Director Melissa Salas in attendance. This time round, it’ll be Melissa, Market Leverage founder Michael Jenkins in attendance.

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Day 3 (Tues 13 Jan 2009)

Super Affiliate PPC Marketing Strategies
Session 7c
Location: Classroom C – Miranda 5-6
Time: 11:30am-12:30pm

Amit Mehta, Ros Gardner and Colin McDougall will be among the 3 PPC affiliates at this session. If it’s anything like the previous sessions, expect a full house.

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The Art of Keyword Blasting
Session9c
Location: Classroom C – Miranda 5-6
Time: 3:15pm-4:15pm

PPC affiliates will find Ian Fernando’s session useful for ideas in kickstarting your PPC campaigns.

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It’s likely that other affiliate networks will host their own parties, so check with your affiliate manager for info. Also WebmasterRadio has hosted “Affiliate Bash” a couple of times, so watch for those too.

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See you at the Affiliate Summit!