Domain Roundtable 2011 – Day Two Recap

Hello from the Bahamas! Domain Roundtable Day two was a huge success and I’m excited to share the adventure with all of you. Unfortunately the Internet connection here has not been fast enough to reliably upload videos to YouTube so you’ll have to wait until I’m back in LA for the video recaps.

Don’t worry though, even without video I can still make you feel like you’re here. Let’s start by waking-up in the morning and looking outside! The view is so spectacular I decided to show three pictures so you can take it all in!

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After taking-in the view I showered, got dressed and headed downstairs. The convention center is in a different building and I met a number of other Domainers downstairs to catch the shuttle. Atlantis is huge and I’m completely certain that if I wandered around for a bit I could get completely lost…which actually doesn’t sounds like a bad idea!

Once we got to the convention center Domainers enjoyed breakfast and some morning networking before the first session.

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After breakfast the first panel – Tactics for Successful Branding began. This was a very interesting panel and the three experts, Michael Berkens, Gregg McNair, and Andries de Villiers all shared some great information about building a brand. The topic of social media was a hot spot as audience members were interested to know how social media impacted branding. The group agreed that social media would by no means replace domains but was instead simply an additional tool that you can use to create and build your brand.

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After the first panel there was a great networking activity lead by Braden Pollock. This was a really creative idea – tables were dedicated to specific topics like Development, Selling Domains, etc. and attendees could go from table to table and discuss the topic with an expert in the field. I was posted at the Development table and really enjoyed meeting new people and sharing ideas. This was a great way to learn about the topics that interest you the most and attendees could move from table to table to cover all areas of interest.

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After the networking session we had lunch and then I headed back to my room to get some work done. Unfortunately I missed a great workshop – Leveraging Social Media – Turning Traffic Into Revenue lead by Robert Moore. There are not enough hours in the day and I had to get some work done before the rest of the days adventures began! I did get a chance to talk with Robert at the evening cocktail party and can say that he knows his stuff! Robert really gets social media and is doing some very cool things in the space – watch-out for this guy as I’m sure you’ll be seeing him more and more at upcoming conferences!

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I spent a few hours taking care of emails, doing a few phone calls, etc. and then put-on my swimsuit and headed down to the Cabanas. This was another great example of the great networking opportunities Domain Roundtable has to offer. It’s getting together in relaxed settings like this that can lead to some of the most interesting conversations – pull yourself out of the daily hustle and bustle and you’d be surprised how the ideas start flowing!

Next we all headed to a Cocktail Reception at Temple Bath Island (don’t ask me to find it again, I’m perpetually lost here!) for more networking. It was a fantastic first day and I am really impressed with how many opportunities there have been to network with all the great people at the conference. There are a lot of people I got to meet for the first time that I haven’t seen at other conferences and in a setting like Atlantis you can really let your hair down (mine was just cut so I guess this analogy doesn’t work as well) and just enjoy time taking and sharing ideas!

Okay, it’s 9:25 and breakfast ends in 35 minutes! I still have to shower, shave and get downstairs to the shuttles but I wanted to make sure I got this blog post out no matter what. Stay-tuned for more updates from Domain Roundtable 2011!

(Pardon any spelling or grammar errors – no time to proof read, I’ve got a conference to go to!)

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton