Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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• Troika Demands 38 New Changes in Greek Tax, Spending and Wage Policies in Next 6 Days
• Pact With the Devil Over Gold
• Don't Worry, It's Only a "Mild Recession"
• Misunderstanding "China's Sweatshop As Great Wall Starts Building Cars In Bulgaria"

Troika Demands 38 New Changes in Greek Tax, Spending and Wage Policies in Next 6 Days Posted: 23 Feb 2012 03:40 PM PST The hit parade of demands on Greece keeps right on marching. The Troika has 38 new demands in addition to 10 pages of prior demands that have not been met. The ten-page list of prior demands need to be met by the end of the month. Fortunately this is leap year so Greece gets an extra day. The Financial Times reports Athens told to change spending and taxes. European creditor countries are demanding 38 specific changes in Greek tax, spending and wage policies by the end of this month and have laid out extra reforms that amount to micromanaging the country's government for two years, according to documents obtained by the Financial Times. The reforms, spelt out in three separate memoranda of a combined 90 pages, are the price that Greece has agreed to pay to obtain a €130bn second bail-out and avoid a sovereign default that the government feared would throw Greek society into turmoil. They range from the sweeping – overhauling judicial procedures, centralising health insurance, completing an accurate land registry – to the mundane – buying a new computer system for tax collectors, changing the way drugs are prescribed and setting minimum crude oil stocks. "The programme is much, much more ambitious than economic reform," said Mujtaba Rahman, Europe analyst at the Eurasia Group risk consultancy. "This is state building, as typically understood in traditional low-income contexts." Most urgency is attached to a 10-page list of "prior actions" that must be completed by Wednesday in order for eurozone finance ministers to give a final sign-off to the new bail-out at an emergency meeting scheduled for Thursday. Among the measures that must be completed in the next seven days are reducing state spending on pharmaceuticals by €1.1bn; completing 75 full-scale audits and 225 value added tax audits of large taxpayers; and liberalising professions such as beauty salons, tour guides and diet centres. Demands Designed to Fail The Troika demands 75 full-scale audits and 225 valued added tax audits in 6 days! Is that going to happen? This setup is without a doubt designed to fail and that should have been obvious ever since Germany asked to put a commission in charge of the Greek budget on Feb 7. Please see  Greece to Cede Sovereignty to Eurozone "Budget Commissioner" for details. These new demands are in addition to a requested a constitutional change that is impossible before 2013. For details, please see Greece Needs New Constitutional Provision Imposed by the Troika; Slight Problem, Constitutionally It Can't Do it It is possible some of the new demands need constitutional changes as well. I simply do not know. Please also consider the Pact With the Devil Over Gold As I have said repeatedly ... Germany has put up roadblock after roadblock attempting to get Greece to scuttle the deal, only to have fools like Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos agree to them. It may be up to Germany to come up with still more ludicrous demands in hope that the Greek finance minister and Greek politicians finally get the message "it's not wise to make a pact with the Troika devil", especially one that requires Greece to relinquish its gold. On Tuesday I said it's a 9 Day Race to Ecstasy; Only Way Greece Can Win Is To Lose It's now 6 and counting. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Pact With the Devil Over Gold Posted: 23 Feb 2012 12:44 PM PST The one and only thing that might possibly spare Greece the agony of a completely worthless currency is Greece's small hoard of 111 tons of gold. Pact With the Devil Yet, in the fine print in the latest deal, Greece's lenders will have the right to seize its gold reserves according to the New York Times article Growing Air of Concern in Greece Over New Bailout. In the fine print of the 400-plus-page document — which Parliament members had a weekend to read and sign — Greece relinquished fundamental parts of its sovereignty to its foreign lenders, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. "This is the first time ever that a European and probably an O.E.C.D. state abdicates its rights of immunity over all its assets to its lenders," said Louka Katseli, an independent member of Parliament who previously represented the Socialist Party, using the abbreviation for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. She was one of several independents who joined 43 lawmakers from the two largest parties in voting against the loan agreement. Ms. Katseli, an economist who was labor minister in the government of George Papandreou until she left in a cabinet reshuffle last June, was also upset that Greece's lenders will have the right to seize the gold reserves in the Bank of Greece under the terms of the new deal, and that future bonds issued will be governed by English law and in Luxembourg courts, conditions more favorable to creditors. Causing a Nightmare Scenario On Tuesday, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos defended the new debt agreement, calling it "the most significant deal in Greece's postwar history" and asserting that it had "averted a nightmare scenario." Today this same puppet of the Troika installed government claims, as he has been for weeks, No Loan Deal Means Absolute Catastrophe Greece Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said Thursday Greece would face an absolute catastrophe if it didn't approve the terms demanded by international creditors in exchange for a second bailout, which includes a EUR107 billion debt write-down plan. Greece is already in a state of absolute catastrophe. The one thing 100% guaranteed to make matters worse for Greece is if Greece lost its hoard of gold to the thieves and plunderers at the IMF and Troika. Rather than "averting a nightmare scenario" that pact is going to "cause" a nightmare hyperinflation scenario. Value of 111 Tons of Gold One tonne = 1000 kilograms = 32150.746 troy ounces. At $1780 per troy ounce, the value of that gold is roughly $6.35 billion. Given an estimated size of the Greek economy at $290 billion or so, that is not a huge hoard. However, something is better than nothing as Zimbabwe proves. Something is enough to prevent a currency from going completely worthless, although obviously not enough to prevent a massive devaluation. Still Time There is still time for Greece to come to its senses and reject the deal. Also recall the conditions of the deal  require a constitutional change and that is impossible before 2013. For details, please see Greece Needs New Constitutional Provision Imposed by the Troika; Slight Problem, Constitutionally It Can't Do it Biggest Hope for Greece is Germany In an enormous irony, Germany may be the biggest hope for Greece. Although France and other countries do want this pact to go through, Germany's words and actions prove that Germany does not. Germany has put up roadblock after roadblock attempting to get Greece to scuttle the deal, only to have fools like Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos agree to them. It may be up to Germany to come up with still more ludicrous demands in hope that the Greek finance minister and Greek politicians finally get the message "it's not wise to make a pact with the Troika devil", especially one that requires Greece to relinquish its gold. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Don't Worry, It's Only a "Mild Recession" Posted: 23 Feb 2012 07:30 AM PST The economic clowns in the EU have finally acknowledged something that was blatantly obvious at least six months ago (and a lot longer if one factored in the likely effects of multiple austerity programs in numerous countries). However, the economists' new conclusion is about as silly as the "no recession" call that preceded it. The new forecast: there will be a recession in the eurozone but not the EU and it will be "mild". Please consider Euro zone economy to shrink in 2012. The euro zone's economy is heading into its second recession in just three years, while the wider European Union will stagnate, the EU's executive said on Thursday, warning that the currency area has yet to break its vicious cycle of debt. "Recent developments in survey data suggest that the expected slowdown will be rather mild and temporary," EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told a news briefing following the release of the European Commission's interim report on the EU economy. The wider, 27-nation European Union, which generates a fifth of global output, will not manage any growth this year, the Commission said. "The EU is set to experience stagnating GDP this year, and the euro area will undergo a mild recession," it said. "Negative feedback loops between weak sovereign debtors, fragile financial markets, and a slowing real economy do not yet appear to have been broken," the Commission said. Germany and France, the euro zone's two largest economies, are likely to escape recession this year, growing 0.6 percent and 0.4 percent respectively, while Greece will enter its fifth year of economic contraction and Spain will shrink 1 percent, the Commission said. Alternate Viewpoint Let me reiterate things I have said many times: Germany and France will not escape recession, the German export machine will see a shocking slowdown (likely billed as "no one could have possibly seen this coming"), the overall EU will face a recession with the UK leading the way (the UK is highly in recession already), and these recessions will be neither mild nor fleeting. By the way, a "negative feedback loop" is self-correcting by definition. Negative feedback occurs when the output of a system acts to oppose changes to the input of the system, with the result that the changes are attenuated. If the overall feedback of the system is negative, then the system will tend to be stable The writer meant a positive feedback loop (with negative consequences). Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Misunderstanding "China's Sweatshop As Great Wall Starts Building Cars In Bulgaria" Posted: 23 Feb 2012 12:23 AM PST ZeroHedge posted an interesting article called Europe Is Now China's Sweatshop As Great Wall Starts Building Cars In Bulgaria. Unfortunately the article contains many often repeated trade fallacies as well as numerous other errors. ZH: "With China Forecast To Reach Wage Parity With The US In Five Years, Is A New Manufacturing Golden Age Coming To The US?" Mish: China's wages are rising fast. Sometimes in leaps of 20%. From where? How sustainable is it? Please consider this snip from the Reuters article HP, Dell watch rising China labor costs for Apple written February 22, 2012: "Taiwan-based Foxconn said the pay of a junior level worker in Shenzhen, southern China, had risen to 1,800 yuan ($290) per month and could be further raised above 2,200 yuan if the worker passed a technical examination. It said that pay three years ago was 900 yuan a month." Let's do the math. $290 a month is $3,480 a year. Assume 20% annual wage hikes, once a year for 5 years. Should that happen, at the end of that time, the salary would be 8,659.35. US minimum wage is $7.25 an hour (not sure what it will be five years from now), but that is about $14,500 assuming a 40 hour work-week and 2 weeks unpaid vacation. It would take 33% raises every year for five years just to match US wages. Is that likely? Bear in mind that shipping costs and productivity issues are also in play. This is not simply a wage issue. ZH: As Spiegel reports, carmaker "Great Wall this week became the first Chinese automobile manufacturer to open an automobile assembly plant inside the European Union in the latest move suggesting the country's carmakers are seeking to establish a beachhead into the European market." Yes, that's right: it is now cheaper for China to make cars in the European Union: "It used to be that European carmakers opened plants to assemble their cars in China. Now the Chinese have turned the tables with the opening of their first factory in Bulgaria, an EU country with low labor costs and taxes. Mish: Is it really cheaper to build cars in Bulgaria, or is something fundamentally different happening? I suggest the latter, possibly both, but the latter point is critical. China is sitting on huge piles of forex resereves. Those reserves must return at some point. China can either buy goods from Europe, or it can invest in Europe. What better place to invest than in a country with low taxes and low labor costs? The Bulgarian Lev currency is pegged to the euro at €1 = BGN 1.95583. Bulgaria is expected to join the Eurozone by 2015. Whether joining makes sense is debatable, but China sees an opportunity. China also has a need to put euro reserves to work. That need is a mathematical identity. By the way, this is likely a good deal for Bulgaria. It gets badly needed jobs. ZH: Chinese carmakers are setting their sights on the European and American automobile markets." The ramifications of this landmark development are massive for virtually every aspect of the economy: for domestic labor migration, for inflation, for the trade balance, and certainly for US workers. Mish: Agreed but for different reasons. This is a necessary part of global rebalancing. ZH: Bulgaria, the EU's poorest country, is attractive as a labor market because it is an oasis of cheap wages and low taxes. Workers are considered well educated and the country is ideal as the site for a company like Great Wall to launch. Given that wages for factory workers have risen considerably in China in recent years, assembly sites abroad have become increasingly attractive for some manufacturers. Mish: Exactly. So just how likely are those 33% annual raises for Chinese workers if the trend catches on? How likely are those 33% annual raises regardless? ZH: So the real question is if Chinese wages can no longer compete with those in a poor EU member, just how high are they? Mish: $290 a month for junior level workers and I will take a stab at not much higher for senior level workers. ZH: And how long before China, for so many years a happy mercantilist importer of Bernanke's monetary inflation courtesy of its currency peg, is no longer competitive with ever growing parts of the EU, and then America? Does this mean that China's cheap labor force has pleateaued and the labor migration of peasants moving from the periphery to the cities no longer provides cheap labor? This was the topic of an extended analysis by SocGen from early January (posted here), of which the salient chart is presented below. Mish: Is that alleged shortage of labor due to inflation and monetary stimulus in China or the US? How much Chinese labor goes into totally unaffordable projects driving up the price of labor? How much of the worker stagnation is simply do to falling export demand? I do not have the answers to those questions but there are multiple explanations for the alleged "shortage of labor". The single most likely explanation however, is unsustainable stimulus and growth, in China. ZH: Aside from demographics, the macroeconomic implications on foreign trade and capital flows are monumental: most immediately for the US, it puts today's Wal Mart miss in a very different perspective, as it means that China is no longer the source of cheap commoditized produce, which in turn means that the entire discount retail vertical may have entered the secular sunsetting phase. Mish: For a completely different viewpoint, and a deflationary one at that, please consider Hugh Hendry of Eclectica Discusses Hyperdeflation, Europe, China, and Japan. ZH: Most importantly, it means that going forward China will have zero tolerance for Fed monetary expansion as any hot money will immediately set off an inflationary forest fire as China suddenly finds itself with absolutely no output gap slack (unlike America which allegedly has more than enough, even though it is really just a secular regression to the mean shift). Mish: Most importantly, such events are a necessary part of global rebalancing. As a mathematical identity, China's hoard of euros must eventually return to Europe just as China's hoard of dollars must eventually return to the US. The sooner this happens the better. The US and Europe should both embrace Chinese investment. Unfortunately, that is highly unlikely. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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Damn Cool Pics

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Sailing Like a Boss Posted: 22 Feb 2012 10:17 PM PST Alex Thomson Racing, also known as the Hugo Boss Sailing Team, attempts what it is called 'The Keel Walk', a stunt that has become infamous throughout the world thanks to the iconic image of Alex 'riding' the keel of his 60ft yacht 'Hugo Boss'. As his 8-tonne carbon fibre yacht, Hugo Boss, sails on edge, Alex pulls up in a 255-horsepower ski jet and leaps onto the keel of the boat. Be sure to check out the embedded video below for proof of this epic feat.

Beautiful Snow Circles at Rabbit Ears Pass, Colorado Posted: 22 Feb 2012 09:34 PM PST Artist Sonja Hinrichsen, together with 5 volunteers last month created, step by step, these massive 'snow-circles' into freshly fallen snow at Rabbit Ears Pass in Colorado. The five friends created the snow-circles simply walking with snow boots around the pristine snow. Three hours later local photographer Cedar Beauregard took this aerial footage with a camera mounted on a remote-controlled hexacopter. Detailed photos can be seen here.

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The 2 User Metrics That Matter for SEO

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The 2 User Metrics That Matter for SEO Posted: 22 Feb 2012 11:35 AM PST Posted by Dr. Pete In the wake of Google’s Panda updates, there’s been a lot of fear regarding user metrics and how they impact SEO.  Many people are afraid that “bad” signals in analytics data, especially high bounce rates and low time-on-site, could potentially harm their rankings. I don’t think Google is tapping into analytics data directly (I’ll defend that later), and I don’t think they have to. There are two user metrics that both Google and Bing have direct access to: (1) SERP CTR, and (2) “Dwell time”, and I think those two metrics can tell them a lot about your site. Google Analytics (GA) & SEO The official word from Google is that analytics data is not used for ranking. Whether or not you believe that is entirely up to you, and I’m not here to argue about it. I’ll only say that it’s rare to hear Matt say something that emphatically.  I think the arguments against using analytics directly as a ranking factor are much more practical in nature… (1) Not Everyone Uses GA Usage stats for GA are tough to pin down, but a large 2009 study placed the adoption rate at about 28%. I’ve seen numbers as high as 40% being quoted, but it’s likely that somewhere around 2/3 of all sites don’t have GA data. It’s tough for Google to penalize or devalue a site based on a factor that only exists on 1/3 of all sites. Worse yet, some of the largest sites don’t have GA data, because those are the sites that can afford traditional, enterprise analytics (WebTrends, Omniture, etc.). (2) GA Can Be Mis-installed Even for sites using GA, Google can’t control how it’s installed. I can tell you from consulting and from Q&A here on SEOmoz that GA is often installed badly. This can elevate bounce rates, reduce time-on-site, and generally add a lot of noise to the system. (3) GA Can Be Manipulated Of course, there’s a malicious version of (2) – you can mis-install GA on purpose. There are ways to manipulate most user metrics, if you want to, and there’s no scalable way for Google to double-check everyone’s installation and setup. Once the GA tags are in your hands, they’ve lost a lot of control. To be fair, others disagree and think that Google will use any data they can get their hands on. Some have even produced indirect evidence that bounce rate is in play. I’m going to argue a simple point - that Google and Bing don’t need analytics data or bounce rate. They have all the data they need from their own logs. The 1 Reason I Don’t Buy One argument you hear all the time is that Google can’t possibly use something like bounce rate as a ranking signal, because bounce rate is very site-dependent and unreliable by itself. I hear it so often that I wanted to take a moment to say that I don’t buy this argument, for one simple reason. ANY ranking signal, by itself, is unreliable. I don’t know a single SEO who would argue that TITLE tags don’t matter, for example, and yet TITLE tags are incredibly easy to manipulate. On-page factors in general can be spammed – that’s why Google added links to the mix. Links can be spammed – that’s why they’re adding social metrics and user metrics. With over 200 rankings factors (Bing claims over 1,000), no single factor has to be perfect. Metric #1: SERP CTR The first metric I think Google makes broad use of is direct Click-Through Rate (CTR) from the SERPs themselves. Whether or not a result gets clicked on is one of Google’s and Bing’s first clues about whether any given result is a good match to a query. We know Google and Bing both have this data, because they directly report it to us. In Google Webmaster Tools, you can find CTR data under “Your site on the web” > “Search queries”. It looks something like this: Bing reports similar data – from the “Dashboard”, click on “Traffic Summary”: Of course, we also know that Google factors CTR heavily into their paid search quality score, and Bing has followed suit over the past year. While the paid search algorithm is very different from organic search, it stands to reason that they value CTR. Relevant results drive more clicks. Metric #2: Dwell Time Last year, Bing’s Duane Forrester wrote a post called “How to Build Quality Content”, and in it he referenced something called “dwell time”: Your goal should be that when a visitor lands on your page, the content answers all of their needs, encouraging their next action to remain with you.  If your content does not encourage them to remain with you, they will leave.  The search engines can get a sense of this by watching the dwell time.  The time between when a user clicks on our search result and when they come back from your website tells a potential story.  A minute or two is good as it can easily indicate the visitor consumed your content.  Less than a couple of seconds can be viewed as a poor result. Dwell time, in a sense, is an amalgam of bounce rate and time-on-site metrics – it measures how long it takes for someone to return to a SERP after clicking on a result (and it can be measured directly from the search engine’s own data). Google hasn’t been quite so transparent, but there’s one piece of evidence that suggests strongly to me that they use dwell time as well (or something very similar). Last year, Google tested a feature where, if you clicked a listing and then quickly came back to the SERP (i.e. your dwell time was very low), you would get the option to block that site: This feature isn’t currently available for all users – Google has temporarily scaled back site blocking with the launch of social personalization. The fact that low dwell time triggered the ability to block a site, though, clearly shows Google is factoring in dwell time as a quality signal. 1 + 2 = A Killer Combo Where these 2 metrics really shine is as a duo. CTR by itself can easily be manipulated – you can drive up clicks with misleading titles and META descriptions that have little relevance to your landing page. That kind of manipulation will naturally lead to low dwell time, though. If you artificially drive up CTR and then your site doesn’t fulfill the promise of the snippet, people will go back to the SERPs. The combo of CTR and dwell time is much more powerful and, with just 2 metrics, removes a lot of quality issues. If you have both high CTR and high dwell time, you’re almost always going to have a quality, relevant result. Do Other Metrics Matter? I’m not suggesting that bounce rate and other user metrics don’t matter. As I said, dwell time is connected (and probably well correlated) to both bounce rate and time-on-site. Glenn Gabe had a nice post on “actual bounce rate” and why dwell time may represent an improvement over bounce rate. I’m also sticking to traditional user metrics from analytics and leaving out broader metrics, like site speed and social signals, which clearly tie into user behavior. What I want you to do is to take a broader view of these user metrics, from the search engine’s perspective, and not get obsessed with the SEO impact of your analytics data. I’ve seen people removing and even manipulating GA tags lately, for fear of SEO issues, and what they usually end up doing is just destroying the reliability of their own data. I don’t think either Google or Bing are using direct analytics data, and even if they do down the road, they’ll probably combine that data with other factors. So, What Should You Do? You should create search snippets that drive clicks to relevant pages and build pages that make people stay on your site. At the end of the day, it sounds pretty obvious, and it’s good for both SEO and conversion. Specifically, think about the combo – driving clicks is useless (and probably even detrimental to SEO) if most of the people clicking immediately leave your site. Work to find the balance and to target relevant keywords that drive the right clicks. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Meet Mozzers at #SMX West 2012 Posted: 22 Feb 2012 04:23 AM PST Posted by jennita Conferences are always a great way to get out and meet the SEOmoz community. Luckily we have SMX West coming up next week and quite a few Mozzers will be attending, speaking, live blogging and tweeting. We want to get a chance to meet as many of you as possible so I forced everyone to decide on a schedule so you’ll know where to find us! Before I get into talking about where we’ll be, it’s probably best to first introduce the Mozzers so you know who to look for. Keri Morgret - @KeriMorgret You all learned a bit about Keri a few weeks ago when we spilled the beans about the Community Team. In addition to all her great community work, she's also a freelance marketer and helps clients with both SEO and PPC. You will find her speaking on Wednesday at 3:30 pm on the Beyond the Google Adwords Tool: Advanced Keyword Research Tactics panel. She'll be talking about negative keywords and some ingenius ways to make sure you're not spending money on unnecessary keyword targeting.  You'll also find her live blogging for http://www.seroundtable.com/. Catch her live blogging schedule below. Michael King - @iPullRank As an Associate for SEOmoz, Mike focuses on answering questions in Q&A and writing for the blog (you may have seen his epic post yesterday). He's also done a Whiteboard Friday (or two) and is a great contributor to the SEOmoz Community. In his regular life, Mike's the SEO Manager at Publicis Modem in NYC. You'll find him all over SMX West this year! He'll be speaking on two panels: What Search Data Reveals About Customer Needs & Desires – And How To Use It,  and he'll be on the Link Building Clinic. Two panels you'll surely not want to miss! One thing you may already know abut Mike is that he loves to get to know people, so if you see him walking by, say hi! I promise, he doesn't bite. Everett Sizemore - @balibones Another grand Associate, Everett helps out by answering Q&A and now and then I twist his arm to write for the blog. He's the Director of SEO Strategy at seOverflow.com and will be speaking on the panel Driving Ecommerce & Retail Sales Through Search, Thursday at 1pm. If you saw his post about building deep links into e-commerce sites, then you know a bit how his mind works. If you're working on an e-commerce or even just a really large site, I'd highly recommend not just going to this panel but also seeking Everett out in person. He's a ridiculous wealth of knowledge and we shouldn't let him keep all that inside. :)   Charlene Inoncillo - @charcillo As our Marketing Admin, Charlene pretty much knows everything going on at all times on the marketing team. She’s new to the industry, so reach out and say hello! (ok, not literally). She'll be attending all of the SMX Bootcamp sessions on the first day and in general learning all about search marketing. Be sure to stop her to say hello and show her how amazing this industry is!     Justin Vanning - @JustinVanning Justin does Paid Search Marketing for Moz so you’ll probably see him spending much of his time in the PPC & Retargeting sessions. He'll be looking for ways to help out the SEOmoz Marketing team in addition to meeting our community. Want to know more about our retargeting efforts, or how we do Facebook advertising? Justin's your man. Give him a holler and ask him about his Twitter strategy. ;)       Jen Sable Lopez - @jennita *waves hello* If you haven't met me yet, I'm the Community Manager here at SEOmoz. I’ll be live-tweeting the heck out of SMX so be sure to watch out for my tweets from @jennita. I'm hitting up a lot of the SEO and social media panels. I love to sit in the front row and make faces at the speakers, so beware! If you're not able to make to SMX follow my tweet stream and I'll attempt to keep you up-to-date. If you're at the conference, please say hello! I love meeting our community members and really try to make it my goal to meet as many of you as possible. Now that you know who you should be looking for, let’s see where all you can find us! Remember some of us are speaking, others are live blogging (or tweeting) and some of us are just attending. Also, we reserve the right to change our minds and attend different sessions as necessary. :D Monday, February 27 – 6:00pm to 7:30pm SMX Meet & Greet Most of us will be attending the networking event on Monday night, so find us and say hello! We’re also planning on going for drinks after so let us know if you’d like to join us. :) Tuesday, February 28 9:00am-10:15am SMX Boot Camp: Keyword Research & Copywriting For Search Success - Charlene Getting Personal, Part 1: How Google & Bing Personalize With Social Connections – Jen (live tweet) + Keri (live blog) Maximizing Paid Search Campaigns With Google’s AdWords Extensions - Justin 10:45am-12pm SMX Boot Camp: Link Building Fundamentals - Charlene Getting Personal, Part 2: How Google & Bing Personalize With Search History & Geography - Jen (live tweet) 1:30pm-2:45pm SMX Boot Camp: Paid Search Fundamentals - Charlene Solving Problems & Seeing Success In Google Places – Jen (live tweet) Power Tools For The Paid Search Pro - Justin 3:30pm-4:45pm SMX Boot Camp: Search Engine Friendly Web Design - Charlene Don’t Panic! A Hitchhiker’s Guide To Surviving SEO Changes – Jen (live tweet) + Keri (live blog) Retargeting & Remarketing: The New Behavioral Ads - Justin Wednesday, February 29 10:45am-12pm SEO For Google+ & Google Search – Charlene + Jen (live tweet) Search Ads: Taking Your Ads From Good To Great! – Justin Real Answers For Technical SEO Problems – Mike (Q&A Moderating) 1:30pm-2:45pm Building Buzz On Twitter: Getting Followed & Retweeted – Charlene + Jen (live tweet) Best Practices For Paid Search Testing – Case Study Panel – Justin Schema.org, Rel=Author & Meta Tagging Best Practices – Keri (live blog) 3:30pm-4:45pm Building Buzz On Facebook: Getting Liked & Shared – Charlene + Jen (live tweet) Beyond The Google AdWords Tool: Advanced Keyword Research Tactics – Justin, Keri (speaking) 5:00pm-6:15pm Creative Facebook Ad Tactics - all of us will be there! 9pm-11pm: SMX After Dark @ Motif Thursday, March 1 9am-10:15am The "New" Killer Content - Charlene Justifying The Investment: Analytics For Social Media  - Jen (live tweet) Maximizing Enterprise PPC ROI - Justin 10:45am-12pm Enterprise SEO – Challenges & Solutions - Charlene What Search Data Reveals About Customer Needs & Desires – And How To Use It – Jen (live tweet) + Justin + Keri (live blog) + Mike (speaking) 1pm-2:15pm Driving Ecommerce & Retail Sales Through Search – Everett (speaking) Link Building Clinic – Mike (speaking) Say Hello! I'm serious here. If I find out that you were at SMX and didn't say hello, I'm going to be sad. Just think if you find us, you may even get a lovely picture with some of us... like this: See you at SMX! PS. If you haven't bought your ticket yet, use the code smx10seomoz to get a discount when you register for SMX.   Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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