Jason Rubacky and I were joking awhile back about how fun it would be if a bunch of affiliate marketers would take a picture of themselves wearing a sweater vest in front of a fireplace, and then we all mail them to the ShareASale office for Christmas. Note to Brian Littleton – we were not mocking your apparel choices by any means. In fact, we all look up to you and want to be just like you. Remember the idiom – imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

So, being the clearance shopper that I am, I knew I had to snatch up this Nebraska Huskers sweater vest for only $1.  Because, well, I personally don’t own a sweater vest. And I don’t ever plan to, thus why I kept the tags on this one to re-gift. Or maybe I’ll list it on eBay. Too bad I already bought an ugly Christmas sweater to wear for our family Christmas.

I’m already behind on sending out my Christmas cards, as I just picked up my photo cards today from Wally World. And since I’m too lazy to search for some photo paper to print out a card for the ShareASale gang, and it probably wouldn’t arrive in Chicago by Friday anyway, I thought I’d publicly share my season’s greeting with ALL of my affiliate friends!

Here’s wishing you all a very
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
from my home to yours…

Eric Nagel did it.  Joe Sousa did it.  Did what you ask? Recap their Affiliate Summit East experience in New York City last week. So I thought I’d put together a post of my own of a few highlights as well.

Saturday

Didn’t get into NYC until evening, but when you stay up until 4 a.m. in the morning, you can still pack in a lot of fun!  First stop was the Buy.at party atop the Empire Hotel followed by pizza, pubs and private parties.

Ken O'Donovan, Jon Levine, Kim Rowley, Pat Grady, Adam Reimer at Quality Meats

Sunday

Luckily I got to sleep in for a bit to heal my self-induced headache. I bounced back in time to hit the first session: Getting Noticed FAST Session. The panelists (Lisa Picarille, Michael Buechele, Trisha Lyn Fawver, Jen Goode and Stephanie Lichtenstein) did a great job, even if they did use some embarrassing pictures of me in their slideshow.

The afternoon was spent carousing the Meet Market. I was happy to volunteer my time at the Affiliate Marketers Give Back booth to raise money for breast cancer awareness.

Kim Rowley & Melissa Salas - Photo courtesy of Warren Corpus

Next up was the Market Leverage Yacht Party which ran us late getting to the ShareASale “Under the Stars” Party.  Brian Littleton always plans the perfect parties! I actually hit the bed early at 1:30 a.m. knowing I needed some beauty sleep.

Monday

I enjoyed the keynote with Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. I wish I would have brought along my copy of their new book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust to have it autographed.

My favorite session (as in most notes taken and I’m smitten by the guy) was with Wil Reynolds. He was kind enough to type up his presentation with links for us all: SEO Tools You Can Use Today.

There were so many parties scheduled Monday night that I couldn’t possibly hit them all. But I couldn’t miss MarketLeverage’s Pizza Party as pizza is my absolute favorite food!  I also made appearances at Linkshare’s Unofficial Affiliate Summit East After Party at Johnny Utah’s (I did not ride the mechanical bull this time), the Drop.io Party at the SoHo House, and the GTO Management Bowling Party.

Bowling & Beers with GTO Management! Photo courtesy of Karen Garcia.

Tuesday

I was anxious to see the keynote with Peter Shankman as I’ve always been a fan of his HARO – Help A Reporter Out newsletter.  He proved to be just as motivational live in person.

I skipped the afternoon sessions to take a subway to Canal Street in Chinatown. I considered this “work” as well since my main sites are shopping related!

I missed going to the Yankees game (thanks for the invite Jason Rubacky) in the new stadium as I had to fly out Tuesday night.

I got to meet a lot of internet celebrities that I had never personally met (ie Gary Vaynerchuck and Ted Murphy) that I plan to blog about individually in upcoming posts.  I also met several non-internet celebrities that you can read about here.

Thanks to Shawn Collins and Missy Ward for putting on yet another phenomenal Affiliate Summit! Can’t wait for #asw10 in Vegas!

Brian Littleton from ShareASale sent me an email yesterday to check out the new ShareASale Photo Booth – what a hoot! They uploaded the photo booth pictures from their carnival themed exhibit at ASW09 in Las Vegas.

The pics of me are none too flattering (and I sure didn’t think they’d pop up online), but they are fun nonetheless. Check out my mugs with Brian himself (head honcho of ShareASale), BajaLori (my mentee) and Mike (of Synner Design aka my brother).

And they plan to bring back the photo booth for ASE09 in New York City!  Will I see you there?

P.S. Jason Rubacky now works for ShareASale, too! What a fun place to work!