SES Paris was a success with increase in attendance and well received sessions. I spoke about the search market in Japan at “Search Around The World” session on the first day. It’s the only session at SES Paris that was in English. (Phew! I took French as the third language at college for a year, but unfortunately, nothing I learned stuck with me.) There were 5 speakers at this session. Each of us was given 5 min to present. The intent was to provide a quick overview of the market from each area; North America, Europe, Australia and Japan, and spend a half of the session time for Q&A, but not many people asked the questions. Perhaps, it’s the language, perhaps, it’s the culture. Some people came to me after the session to talk about the Japan market, and it was great to learn that there was a great interest in Japanese market among French people and the businesses.

At larger SESs (London, New York, etc.), this session is usually broken up in 2 sessions, one for Asia-Pacific and the other for the rest of the world. Asia-Pacific session is great for people interested in this area of market. We give lots of statistics, points to keep in mind in doing business in these markets, etc.

I try to update my presentation for each conference. It’s quite a challenge to create a good presentation with good amount of information, which is not boring at the same time. I think that some of the information, which are very much “ordinary” to me as I’ve been doing this work for more than 10 years, can be very valuable to others who are new to the business in Japanese market. So I try to go back to the basic and review the whole Japanese SEO/SEM processes and the Japan market, and include them to the presentation as well.

Right now, I’m challenging myself to reduce the number of slides, and considering to add some interesting “stories” to the presentation. Or… should I stick to the fact???