I’ve been talking to the WickedFire folks and we’re psyched about meeting up.

I’ve planned out my itinery and will likely be spending more time networking and attending sessions, compared to drinking and clubbing.

There are a number of networking parties including one hosted by oneNetworkDirect and Wynn Las Vegas at Wynns’ TRYST nightclub which features a private lagoon. If there’s one phobia I have, it’s dancing in public.

We’ll see how this pans out.

Besides visiting the exhibit halls, I’m planning to attend the following sessions:

Day 1 (Jan 21, Sunday)

• Exhibit hall from the time I arrive (likely about 5pm)
• Ice Breakers Networking session (7pm to 9pm, venue: Platinium)

And the WF folks have arranged a football event with the XY7.com Affiliate Management folks.

Day 2 (Jan 22, Monday)

• WF Breakfast (9am, Bally’s)
• Marketing Your Affiliate Site – Outside the Box (Scott Hazard, Cooperative Affiliates Inc, 1130am – 1230pm, Classroom #B Silver)
• Optimizing with Your Merchant Partner (Jake Bailey, Overstock.com, 2pm – 3pm, Classroom #B Silver)
• Ask the Experts: Super Affiliates (Jon F (WickedFire), Jeremy Schoemaker (Shoemoney), Andrew Johnson (Web Publishing Blog) (330 pm – 430 pm, Classroom #B Silver)

Day 3 (23 Jan, Tuesday)

• Rotating Roundtables: A series of 10-minute “speed dating” style table rotations with table speakers on topics like email marketing, affiliate strategies, search engine reputation monitoring and lead generation (945 am – 11 am, Platinum)
• Bloggers – The New Super Affiliates – Jim Kukral, BlogKits (1130 am – 1230pm, Classroom #B Silver)
• Optimizing Landing Pages – Choots Humphries (LinkConnector Corporation), Mark Widawer (Landing Page Cash Machines) (2 pm – 3 pm, Classroom #C Bronze 1 and 2)
• The Confluence of Search and Affiliate Marketing – Kris Jones (Pepperjam) (330 pm – 430pm Classroom #B Silver)

I’m looking forward to Shoemoney, Jon’s WF, Jim Kukral and Kris Jones’ presentation.

With 1,700 participants, it might be a challenge, but I’ll be keeping a eye out for PlanetAndrea, Ros Gardner, Scott Jangro, Robyn “SleepyBlogger” Tippins, Sam Harrelson, Becky “WebMoxy” Ryan, Joe Whyte and the LunarPages ninjas.

I’d like to meet you if you’re headed to ASW, stop me and say hi if you see me!

Some will obviously be interesting, fun and insightful. The bulk, unfortunately, will have…lots of room for improvement on being interesting, fun and insightful.

The more interesting (and slightly voyeuristic ones like the ‘5 Things About Me’) ones will tend to generate more social traffic, and attract longer term longevity and reader stickiness, especially if you come across as personable and likeable.

Sticky content is one of the foundations of sustainable and credible social traffic generation.

Yes, memes may seem to contain high school popularity contest overtones, but it’s based on a “hip geekiness quotient” (HGQ) more than anything else.

Did anyone else feel like a loner in school? Or perhaps you were the one intellectual quarterback or wrestler in the team? [I can only lay claim to being in the computer club and the electronics/audio-visual club and the occasional explosion and filling an entire chemistry lab with chlorine gas].

Back to the meme, I’ve been hit by Chris “HooMoney” Hooley.

So here goes the Trust Meme:

===

Ok- ‘nother meme, but this one seems bit more interesting. It’s about the trust. Greg Niland kicked off what seems to be a good one this time.

Here’s the tree so far…

Greg Niland
trusts
Rae Hoffman
trusts
Michael Gray
trusts
Todd Malicoat
trusts
Andy Hagans
trusts
Cameron Olthuis
trusts
Jarrod Hunt
trusts
Chris Hooley
trusts
The SEOmoz peeps I still trust them, but they can’t keep the meme going. I also trust Andrew Wee!
trusts
Planet “I got the biggest freaking business card collection at ASW and whooped Joe Whyte’s butt” Andrea

trusts

????

—

PA, represent!

PS: Andrea just launched her new spammy innovative cooking video site at AndreaCanCook.com. If you’d like to make a request for spam sandwiches or baked beans and pickles on toast, drop her a comment.

Maybe if we’re really nice, she’ll make food, so we can spend more on entertainment.

PPS: I’d be really surprised if Joe Whyte doesn’t rally his Lunar Pages Marketing Team ninjas in on this one.

I still haven’t figured out whether Joe refering to me as an ‘advisary‘ is a compliment or an insult.

Should we be worried that in the same post Joe also says “I’m bring my sexy!”

Maybe someone has been studying the “All your base are belong to us” wiki and drinking a little too much juice?

An ‘advisary’? ‘I’m bring my sexy!’?

Can someone help out?

Here’s my to do list for ASW:

• Attend the great sessions planned
• Meet and greet the affiliate managers present, as not many have a point of presence in Asia.
• Finally put a face to many of the personalities whose blogs I’ve been reading, or emailing, or catching their web radio programs, or whose forums I’ve been participating on.
• Get a Shoemoney t-shirt (one of the new black one maybe?)
• Get some nice WickedFire merchandise at their booth
• Catch some great parties

This is one of the few times I’d be heading halfway around the world (I’ll be battening down the hatches in Asia to work on a couple of major projects once I get back).

So far, I look forward to the opportunity to meet and greet with Shoemoney, Jon F, Anik Singal, PlanetAndrea, Chris Hooley, Scott Jangro, Robyn Tippins, Shawn Collins, Missy Ward, the LunarPages blogging team (including Joe Whyte) and it looks like Pepperjam will have a good presence there too.

I might be approaching some of you to do interviews, so you are forwarned, and perhaps forearmed.

If you’re planning to interview any of the folks at ASW, here’s a couple of pointers from my days as a tech journalist.

• Do Your Research

Nothing’s more irritating than being asked, ‘What do you do?’, ‘What is your website/blog address?’, ‘Can you explain what you do?’. My all time favourite had to be the story of another tech journalist who went to IBM and asked, ‘What’s a server? Is it some kind of maid or butler?’

We live in the online world. Google your intended target. Use technorati if you need to. Look through PRWeb, scan article directories. Visit their blog/website. Look through their milestones. Read through the past 6 months or 1 year of archives. Look through major trends in their industry/niche. How does that impact them?

• Be Prepared

If you requested the interview, think through the angle of the story. Don’t expect your interviewee to propose an angle. If you do any copywriting, you don’t have any reason not to be able to come up with an angle for the interview. The interviewee is there to sit in front of you and answer your questions. Look at your research, figure out the angle.

• Be Thorough

If you’re asking the questions, follow a logical sequence and be thorough.

Use the ‘inverted pyramid’ content structure (starting in general terms before coming to specifics questions). Think like your reader. How would you like the information to be presented? Structure your questions in that manner.

Note down key statistics and facts, list your questions down so you can refer to them.

If your interview subject sidetracks, bring them back to focus.

Coming up with quality content requires laser-sharp focus.

If your subject is getting majorly off-point, gently interrupt them and bring them back to your original question.

• Assembling the Jigsaw

Newer interviewers tend to follow a chronological sequence when presenting the interview. I’d suggest reorganizing your information to follow themed segments might be more useful for your reader.

A major shortcoming of verbatim transcripts is that related points might be scattered through the discussions. This tends to present a somewhat schizophrenic picture, unless your subject is very used to being interviewed.

• The Biggest Success Factor

It’s related to adopting a reader-centric approach to interview. If you’re able to present the information clearly to your reader, you’ve succeeded.

PS: If you’ll be at ASW, leave a comment below or drop me a note via the contact form, including your email address. I’d love to meet up.