I just got home from Jerusalem and am very happy to report that the first annual MarcShoret conference was a huge success.

Kudos once again to Paula, Avigail & everyone at Writepoint.com as well as all the presenters for putting on a really great conference this past Sunday (November 2, 2008) at Binyanei HaUma in Jerusalem. We all know them as the organizers of the annual Techshoret conferences, the next one being scheduled for February 26, 2009—Save the Date!

The full day conference included presentations by both companies and freelancers. Two presenters Joan Weinberg, and Debbi Zylbermann made really interesting and useful presentations despite being called upon on less than a week before the conference to fill openings created when Adobe informed the conference organizers at that late date that their scheduled speaker would not be coming.

As your new website administrator, I simply could not pass up the opportunity to hear Debi Zylbermann, who I met at the September meeting of the Jerusalem Business Networking Forum. Her presentation was about website promotion. Since you are reading this article already, we already found you, but we are hoping to expand both our content and our readership in the very near future, so her advice was very timely for me.

Lisa Barkan, of Digital Shtick gave a very complete overview of how to plan and effectively prepare for an event or conference as a presenter. Her lecture was well organized and was well attended. Audience participation included staff from companies such as Comverse and others who stated that they attend more than twelve such events per year.

Other morning presenters included Belinda Gerber of Gerber Communications, who spoke on Strategic Messaging, 2 freelancers, Irit Avidor and Danny Verbov who discussed strategies for finding business information on the internet and how to improve marketing communications, respectively.

Joan Weinberg’s presentation followed directly on the heels of a sumptuous lunch, but she kept everyone spellbound with her information and experiences. She had more than enough material for 2 sessions, so I hope she has the opportunity to give a continuation next year.

Attending Joan’s lecture meant that I was once again unable to attend Miriam Schwab’s presentation on “Bootstrap Marketing”. Many of you had the opportunity to see her presentation at the last Techshoret conference so you know what I missed, but one cannot be everywhere at once, try as we might. Also in that time slot was Ben Goldfarb’s (WritePoint) Business Coaching presentation.

For my final selection, I attended the Graphic Design Production tutorial, given by Edusoft Ltd.’s Ellen Perlis that was extremely informative. Some of the information I learned will soon bear fruit as we upgrade the Elephant site. Attending this session meant missing Jacob Richman’s Social Media Marketing session as well as the presentation by Glenn Jasper, Managing Director of Ruder-Finn entitled, “A Marketing Marriage: Company and Agency Working Together.

In addition to the sessions, the conference allowed ample time for networking both between sessions as well as during an extended lunch period by serving dessert in the networking area rather than as part of lunch proper. There were a number of vendors with booths, as well as a job fair table, where job seekers could leave their resumes. Despite the current economy, it appeared to me that nearly all of the resumes placed on the table, disappeared, so I hope that is sign of good things to come.