Well, I am back - not quite fully recovered, but back. It was a long trip which ended with a three hour runway delay.

Here are a few of the things I took home from the event:

Hot:

• Jobing - Weren't they just a regional job board last year? Wow, did they come out of no where. Perhaps sparked by their recent acquisition of LocalCareers, or perhaps due to their consistent and steady growth - they had one of the largest and most creative booths at the event. Probably 30-40 sales people representing each of the local markets they cover worked the booth. I had a chance to meet with their VP, and was very impressed with the company they have built.
• Snag-a-job - another site that has been on my radar, but whom I hadn't realized had grown so much had a booth equal in size to both Monster and Careerbuilder. Very impressive.

Not:

• Free Stuff/Give aways - it felt like attendees visiting the expo hall for free stuff hit an all time high. I saw one guy filling a baby carriage with everything he could get his hands on. Just so you all know - vendors have the give away stuff so that we can engage folks in conversation or provide a branding opportunity to a prospect. We acknowledge that many people stop just for the give away, but come on - this is out of control. On the vendor side, I actually saw booth employees doing advanced inventory management.
• Party Excess - There were three huge parties thrown on Monday evening. Each of these parties must have cost between $250,000 and $500,000 to produce (one of them included a live concert by the Barenaked Ladies).