Conferences and Pac Man

On the emailgeeks slack channel someone asked for advice about going to conferences. There were lots of great suggestions. I threw in the Pac Man Rule and realised a lot of folks haven’t heard of it before.

Eric Holscher created the Pac Man rule. The rule is really simple. If you’re standing in a group talking at a conference a circle can make it challenging for new people to join you. But, if you leave a space for another person to join you by standing in the shape of a Pac Man, you’re inviting new people to join.

Here’s a video explaining:

I’ve found this really useful and helpful both when I’ve been in conversations and when I’ve wanted to join conversations.

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Upcoming events

Next month I’ll be in London for the Email Innovations Summit. This will be an updated version of what you need to know to talk with technical folks.
In early December I’ll be doing a DMA webinar discussing the subscription bombings. That’s still in the works.
I’m looking at some events for next year. I am planning on being at M3AAWG in San Francisco in February.
I’m looking at others, too. What are your favorite events?

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Prepping for EEC


Tomorrow I head off to New Orleans to the EEC conference. It’s my first one and I’m really looking forward to meeting some of the people I only know online.
I’ll be speaking on two panels on Friday:
All You Ever Wanted to Know about Deliverability (But Were Afraid to Ask) at 10:50. This is your chance to ask those questions of myself and other experts in the field. I always enjoy Q&A panels and actually hearing from folks what their big deliverability questions are. (and remember, if you have a question, you can always send one to me for Ask Laura)
and the closing Keynote panel
ISP Postmasters & Blacklist Operators: Defending Consumer Inboxes at 1:10. I’m on a panel with various ISP postmasters, blacklist operators and we’ll be talking about what it’s like dealing with the deluge of mail. For instance, there is a huge outbreak of bot-spam at the moment, and a lot of the filters are struggling to keep up. In fact, I’m a last minute replacement for one filter company as they are in all-hands-on-deck firefighting mode to keep their customers safe.
Hope to see you there!
 

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Insight 2015 and upcoming talks

In about an hour I will be heading down to Monterey to give a talk at the MessageSystems Insight 2015 conference.
I really wanted to go to the whole conference, as I’ve heard great things about previous ones. It just didn’t work with my schedule. I’ll be around this afternoon and tomorrow morning, though. So if you’re there, do drop by and say Hi!
If you’re not at Insight, but are interested in hearing me speak, you can join us on November 12 at the 2015 All About eMail Virtual Conference & Expo. Ken Magill will be interviewing me about email and delivery. The session is also very open to audience questions, so come with some of your own.

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