Over Cocktails:It’s Where the Real Conversations Take Place

The best parts of a conference, inevitably, are the times when you gather by the pool for the cocktails. Then you loosen up, laugh a bit, and get the nerve up to corner that guy you saw earlier and noticed his badge, and wondered what his funny sounding company did. Tonight we met a whole bunch of people as waitresses circled with coconut shrimp and sausage mushroom caps.

Jennifer Eisenberg, with bright eyes and lovely teeth, said she had recently been hired by Budget Travel.com as Senior Manager of Audience Development. I told her some things about search engine marketing, and hope that I see her again at the NY Times Travel show in February. She said she had lived in Israel for two years, and there worked for several website companies before she joined BT.

Then a man came up and said that he used to own a big car rental company, but sold it and now he works once in a while on a few websites he developed in the 90s. Websites are like annuities; they can run for years with just a few tweaks, if you get a good formula.