John Hossack from VKI Studios at Vancouver SEM Meetup – Jan 2009

My first post of the year is going to be to thank John Hossack and VKI Studios for coming out last Monday to present at the Vancouver Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Meetup, which I organize.

It was the first time we run out of seats in the room at what has become our regular Meetup place, Ceili’s Irish Pub. I was surprised, but not that much; John and VKI Studios are two big names in Vancouver, so it was natural for this meetup to pull lots of people – around 50.

The “Ugly Jerry” presentation

The “ugly Jerry” principle took the simple theory of comparison contrast (I’m sure that’s not a technical name) and added a smart twist that makes it a powerful weapon for online sellers.

I’m not going to go into depth on explaining the Ugly Jerry principle this time, unless I get a lot of requests to do so. Instead, John has been kind enough to provide us with his presentation – here it is!

The one thing you should have in mind when you look at this presentation is that order and position matter. In other words, notice the order of the pictures and that they are side by side.

Funded Training!

In the first minutes of the presentation John talked about a government incentive program for individuals to get professional training, government funded.

The program can give up to $5,000 per company ($1,500 per person) for employees to advance their training in their professions. The only requirements are for the company to be under 50 employees and older than 1 year.

VKI Studios is an authorized training company for Analytics, SEO, PPC, Usability and Persuasion, if I’m not mistaken.  They have blogged about the funded training opportunity. You should check it out.

Photos

I took some photos of the Meetup, and this time I went all out including my artful “Dark Nacho Close-up” and “Intense Eli With Nacho (right)”.

The good pictures, however, are from Jeremy Lim, a great (and unlike me, a real) photographer who was kind enough to lend us his talent for this meetup. Thank you Jeremy! Here his photos.

About VKI Studios and John Hossack

If you’re in Vancouver and into search engine marketing or related industry, you’ve probably heard about VKI Studios. It’s one of the most reputable SEO, usability and conversion companies around.

John is the CEO of VKI Studios and the President and Treasurer of the International Internet Marketing Association (IIMA).

Awesomeness

Thank You Ceili’s Irish Pub for being such an awesome place to host our Meetups, providing the AV, and all the help. You guys are geniuses.

About Me

I’ll talk about my holidays, thoughts for the New Year, and other anecdotes surrounding my life in later posts; now let’s talk about the meetup.

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