NOTE: This is part 3 of my SES China Experience Series.

People who know me from way back will tell you I’m a closet extrovert. I love meeting new people and hearing their stories. I sometimes appear detached to some but generally, I’m a very friendly guy. That outlook served me well during SES China, which was my first international speaking engagement and my first international networking test. I brought 1,000 business cards with me for the event (kidding, just 200) and I wanted at least 200 business contacts in return. I didn’t quite reach that quota, but as with link building, it’s the quality that counts more.

Here’s a rundown of people I met in Nanjing that made SES China all the more interesting:

Zafrul Azhar Noordin (Partner, Motionworks)
Zaf would have my vote for the friendliest SES participant award if there ever was one. This Malaysian was just tearing it up at Nanjing. The Southeast Asian connection really helped break the ice. I think he liked the SEO Philippines idea so much he went out and bought SEOMalaysia.com :)

Miles Evans (CEO, ProftPapers) and Sirinee Seesod-Evans (President, ShopMuayThai.com)
Two more members of the SES Southeast Asian club, Miles and Sirinee definitely know how to paint the town red. Miles is a Canadian who’s now based in Thailand and Sirinee is his wife. Miles stepped up when he heard Zaf and me talking about the hot spots in KL and Manila. Miles is an evangelist on the effectivity of link building through article submission sites and has since made me a convert.

White guy with black coat is Miles Evans, girl with the peace sign is Sirinee Seesod-Evans and Guy Romm’s the one in the brown sweater

Guy Romm (CTO, TrafficOnNet)
How can you miss a SEO with a mohawk? Guy was one of the more technical SEOs I met in Nanjing and he had great stories about SEO and life in Israel. He too was thousands of miles away from home, alone and freezing to death. Guy and Kfir Chervinski (CEO, TrafficOnNet) flew to Manila a few days after the conference and we had dinner and discussed a few things :)

Stephen Noton (Senior SEM/SEO Consultant, Adverted)
Singapore-based Stephen Noton was one of the most “open” SEOs in the conference, dishing out golden AdWords and SEO tips left and right. I got more practical AdWords tips that single dinner than I did reading the AdWords book I just bought a few weeks back. Extended stays in Thailand and Singapore have Asianized this Canuck and I hope to see him and the rest of the SES Southeast Asian gang soon.

Frankie Ho (Channel Sales Manager, Yahoo! Hong Kong)

Frankie was one of the first people I met at the SES networking party. Frankie suprised me by asking how Yahoo! was doing in the Philippine market. I didn’t have a ready answer but I got him back by asking for the date when the Yahoo! Publisher Network would be made available to Asian publishers. With Yahoo! ramping up its brand campaigns in Southeast Asia and China, I have a feeling I’ll bump into Frankie again soon in one of the regional SEM events like AdTech Singapore.

T.R. Harrington (CEO, Darwin Marketing)

The conversation T.R. and I had during the SES networking party went from doing business in China to the state of online marketing and Web 1.0. A true veteran of the Internet, T.R. is making it happen in Shanghai.

Shakil Khan (Chinawhite.net)

Shak’s a character you can’t miss in a crowd. He’s 7 feet tall :) the lessons he dishes out from his blog about being the “man on the ground” in Shanghai are priceless.

To be continued: SES Personalities I Met 2