UPDATE: We are inside for right now, on the right hand side.

The next event has been planned for a while, it just took me getting to Vegas to have time to mention it. I hope everyone can join us for a PubCon recap next Thursday, November 20th! We’ll keep it low key like always and just get together at Draught House. Taylor Pratt, Dan Crean, and myself all attended PubCon this week and our own Brett Tabke ran the entire thing. Biggest show of the year and tons of fun so far!

Email me if you’re coming by Wednesday, November 19th katemorris at gmail.com. I sent out an email today, if you aren’t getting our emails sign up here. And tell friends! Remember, we want to keep it to the SEO/M community, but we want everyone in the space. Invite co-workers!

Date: November 20th
Time: 6pm – ish
Place: Draught House (near Burnet and 45th)
4112 Medical Pkwy
Austin, TX 78756


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I had heard that you all wanted a forum to discuss things (cough … Brett … cough), ask questions, and just chat. Well, we put one up finally. Please register and get to asking those questions and interacting. If you see any issues, please let me know. You can also talk to @pratt, he’s a moderator as well.

We are really excited to get all of this going and hope it’s as beneficial to you as hoped. Stay tuned for an upcoming announcement about the next event. I’ll be out at PubCon the second week of November. If you’re going to be there let me know, you can heckle me at my sessions.

If anyone ever wants to post something here, just drop me a line, be happy to get you a login.

We had a blast night and Third Base was great getting everything set up for us. I gotta say, I was very impressed by the food there too. Stay tuned for what we will be doing next month (or later this month really). If you have ideas/suggestions on place/time/topic please let me know!

Eugene took some pictures and has graciously posted them on Facebook for us. Check them out, and here are a few of my favorites.

[caption id="attachment_48" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Taylor Pratt listening intently to Jeremy Benken"][/caption]

Date: October 2, 2008

Time: 6:00pm

Place: Third Base
WE ARE OUTSIDE ON THE DECK
1717 West 6th Street
Austin, TX 78703
(512) 476-2273

RSVP: Please email and let me know if you will attend, just need an idea for Third Base that morning. Email katemorris at gmail dot com

Please note that we welcome all Austin area search marketing professionals. We want to keep these events to those working in the space, no salesmen, etc.
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We had a fantastic first meeting to get this whole thing going. But I learned one thing, meeting at the library is not as “free” as it seems to have a meeting. You have to have a Health Department permit to serve food, and that’s $30-40. Not sure what would have happened if I had brought beer.

With that noted, we had a great group of about 10 to bounce ideas around and get the next get together planned. We had a great time talking about how we got into search engine marketing and what we want this group to be.

Something was brought up that I think is worth sharing here. There are tons of groups in Austin that relate to what we do, but still don’t focus on what we do for a living. And I wanted to give those groups some props for being a great resource as well. If you know of others that should be on this list, please let me know.

• Austin SEO Meetup
• Refresh Austin
• Austin Interactive Marketing
• Austin Internet Entrepreneurs
• Web Analytics Wednesdays
• Austin Technology Council
• HerDomain
• Austin Drupal Users Group
• Austin Joomla Users Group
• Austin Bloggers

Look for an announcement on the next get together (not really a meeting, more socializing). For now here’s the date:

Date: October 2, 2008
Place: TBA (Third Base, Belmont, Draught House, Shiner Saloon, etc)
Time: 6-7ish? (TBD)

When: August 26, 2008

Time: 7:00pm

Where:Yarborough Branch of the Austin Public Library
2200 Hancock Dr. Austin, Texas 78756, (512) 454-7208

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Agenda:

1. Introductions
2. AustinSEM.org Mission
3. Future Events Brainstorming

RSVP by COB August 25, 2008 to katemorris at gmail dot com. I’ll bring pizza

We know you’re out there and we know you’re frustrated. I’m talking to the Austin SEO/M’s out there. We feel alone everyday when our coworkers/spouses give us blank stares as we babble about Google/Yahoo/MSN. It’s time we changed all of that.

AustinSEM.org is a group of non-affiliated internet marketers in Austin and surrounding areas. We don’t care where you work, we would prefer not to know. All we care about is building you up as an internet marketer. If you love SEO and want to know more about PPC, we can help. We are there for each other to be a support group of sorts. An area where you can let loose, complain, brainstorm, and most of all grow.

Keep up here and we’ll post more about future events. Want to help? Email me katemorris at gmail dot com.