Lately we did a lot of product centered posts, sort of forgetting about the people behind and around Refined Ads. After being active in the search industry for about 8 years it feels like time just flies by, but one thing that amazes us every single time is how great the search community really is.

During last weekend a great friend of the company, Shakil Khan, made it down to Munich to talk with some of us about Online Marketing, running a business and being more successful. Together with him we managed to hang out with Lukasz and Kolja as well as some other bright people from the German Online space. A second good reason for this to happen was DLD, which took place earlier this week and once again proved to be a great conference. Meeting new people that were interested in sharing stories as well as meeting business partners and friends from all over the world made it really worthwhile. One of the better coincidences was walking by Marissa Mayer and her greeting, even though we met the last time in Zurich back in 2005.

After DLD the week went on with a big BVDW meeting where I had the chance to show more people how great Refined Ads is.

Unfortunately during the course of the evening it also became public that a friend, one of the first people parts of our team met, died in a tragic plane accident. Martin Schaedel was one of the brightest people that I ever met, his networking skills were unbelievable and the way he lived was as most people would love to if they had the chance. I guess it’s safe to say that Martin inspired thousands of people around the world and I have to admit that Martin always seemed like a hero with his talent and seeing that go is one of the saddest moments in my professional and personal life.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 19:35 and is filed under Conferences, Internal, Search News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.