It’s 11:15 PM on Thursday and I’m looking out over the pitch black landscape as my Boeing 737 cuts through the thunderstorms below with jarring effects. I’m returning home from a week-long conference in San Jose, California. I, as well as several of my co-workers, attended Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose 2007. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and probably a little smelly, but most of all, I’m happy that I went.

What I Expected

Earlier this year, I attended a Forrester Finance Forum in New York City, and with little research beforehand, I thought that SES would be much of the same. It was not, but more resembled Microsoft’s TechEd event that I attended in Orlando, Florida. That was a pleasant surprise.

What I Got

Several of the vendor display booths were quite elaborate and a good bit of them were littered with schwag and I openly admit that I went through the exhibitors area and dropped my business card off at every booth that was giving away an Apple iPhone or a Nintendo Wii. Unfortunately, as of 1:30 PM PST (our departure time) I was not the new proud owner of either.

While I had to miss several sessions to keep up with my day job duties, I was still able to participate in several good discussions:

Google Keynote: I thoroughly enjoyed the Wednesday morning Keynote session with Marissa Mayer, as I’ve been a self-proclaimed Google fanboy for quite some time. It was a pleasure to be in the same room with someone who has been with the company since the early days and who’s passion is so genuine for all of the new developments.

I’m looking forward to seeing where Google goes in the future, especially with the recent rumors of a new mobile device and possibly their own wireless network.

CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines: This session was also very entertaining as Mikkel deMib Svendsen slides and delivery were very untraditional. His colorful commentary and applicable knowledge of the industry held my attention the entire time. This feat alone was impressive given that his presentation was at the end of a very long day. Vanessa Fox was just as amusing and relied upon a unique presentation style to keep the audience enthralled. You could clearly see that she was comfortable in front of her SES peers; this was not her first time at the podium.

Visiting the Googleplex is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that I can now cross off of my list.

Google Dance: The highlight of the trip for me was the ability to attend the Google Dance on Tuesday evening. If you’re a self-proclaimed uber-geek like me then you know how exciting it is to have the opportunity to attend a fully catered event at the Googleplex. Justin and I agreed, “visiting the Googleplex is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that I can now cross off of my list”.

The place was jumping. Everywhere you looked was stimulation of different varieties. Open bars, catered dinners, arcade games, and DJs were abundant. And if you didn’t get your fill of geekiness during the day then you had the opportunity to speak with several of Google’s gurus about current and upcoming products.

I wish that I could get my hands on some statistics that showed how many of it’s attendants were uploading YouTube videos, chatting on Twitter, and posting pictures on Flickr (or Picasa if you’re a Google elitist) while the party was going on. I know that I saw several cellphones being held high above the crowds capturing the evenings events.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to run into or attend any sessions in which Markus Frind, owner of PlentyOfFish, participated. I was really looking forward to getting a sneak peak into his mind and understanding the steps he took to launch his very successful dating site.

SES was a great opportunity for me to listen to some of today’s leading Internet Entrepreneurs and fine-tune my approach to he launch of my upcoming business ventures. The event planted a couple of thought-provoking seeds, and reassured me that I was heading in the right direction.

If you attended the conference this year I would love to hear your take on it.