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My (Aaron Phillips) cPanel Conference 2011 Recap 

Howdy from Houston!  Let me first apologize about the informal tone of this post, but I needed to get out some thoughts about this year’s cPanel Conference

Here’s the scoop from my perspective:

I made a few promises to myself going into this conference:

1. I’d arrive at both keynotes 30 minutes early and at no time during their delivery would I fall asleep.  (Completed, FTW.)
    
2. At no time during the conference would I engage in an exhibit hall battles (Failed, and damn you SoftLayer rockets and Black Lotus flying monkeys.)
    
3. I would avoid going crazy and robbing the cPStore of cool swag items to impress peers. (Mission failed, but I did make it to day two!)

As luck has it, the one goal I did get off my conference bucket list was attending the keynote sessions and learning from two people (and their brand) whom I totally respect.   

Tuesday morning, 9:25 a.m. – 

I think to myself....”What’s that strange sounding alarm going off, and why won’t it stop?”  BECAUSE it’s mine!  Shower.  Dress.  Brush teeth.  Find coffee.  Find more coffee.  Find Nathan Day.  Mission completed.  Remind myself that falling asleep during the keynote while sitting in the front is not good for return business.  And... done.

10 a.m.

Nathan Day was first to bat.  Although telling his story wasn’t the topic of the session, he walked us through his perspective of SoftLayer and the lessons he’s learned along the way.  I enjoyed hearing the SoftLayer story from Nathan’s angle.  Nathan is one of a handful of chiefs who participated in numerous buyouts and mergers and is one of the great legends in the web hosting industry.  With both an impressive background in history and his direct involvement with the SoftLayer startup, Nathan shed some light on successful management and startup wisdom.    

Much like cPanel, SoftLayer prefers automating tasks versus expending human capital, and Nathan taught the crowd what it takes to go from zero to a billion-dollar company.  It is refreshing to hear the SoftLayer story from various members of the team, and while similar in nature, each individual member of the team has a slightly different take.   

11 a.m.

cPanel Conference is definitely in full swing. The hall was full of exhibitors and attendees.  People were Da$h’ing for cPCache, and the cPanel employee booths were open and ready for business.  I snatched a dog tag from Customer Service, saw cPanel University getting assaulted, and stopped by to watch Jerett and James show off some classy UI’s.   

12:30 p.m.

Lunch.  Meeting.  And another meeting.  Coffee... and it’s time to find Troy with Attracta.  We just signed a sizable deal to integrate them into cPanel & WHM.  Troy and I opted to sign in-person at the cPanel Conference since it’d be more fun.  Found him.  Troy!  Pens out.  Signature taking place and.... dated.   Troy’s turn.  Rinse.  Wash.  Repeat.  Contract signed.  Press release being sent.   

Man, this day flew by.  It’s 4:30 p.m. and things at the cPanel Conference are winding down.  

6:45 p.m.

Off to Pecan Street for dinner.  Front table selected.  I get to hang with Jason Silvergate and a handful of cPanel employees.  Cheesy chicken, yum.  Double up on the carbs and protein to prepare my body for another night of torture.  Find Diane.  Pay the bill.  Off to Roail.  

8:45 p.m.

Tuesday evening went off without a hitch.  Like you, I was thinking, “Man, I hope this isn’t another Dan Band experience.”  As a result, we thought it was time to up the ante and redeem our show-stopping, jaw-dropping, over-the-top parties – and we did.   

Greet cool people from SingleHop (yo yo Andy Pace), SoftLayer (Nathan Day in da haus), Resell.Biz (woot to Team NJT—Nick, Judah, Terry), HostDime (with their own break dancer), HostGator (with the unusual suspects), BuycPanel (Lance, Tim, and the gang) and the rest of the Web Hosting Mafia (names to be released at a later date).  If I forgot anyone, it’s not my fault.  

Fire dancers, Storm Troopers, The Space Rockers (awesome band), an open bar, and a slew of Web-hosting Geeks with no bedtime made for a great first evening. The first night in a nutshell – no one got burned, the Dark Side was defeated, and I lost my voice from cheering at the band and drinking weird concoctions. w00t!  

In bed by 3:30 AM.  Great Success!     

Operation Blastoff resulted in copious amounts of enjoyment, making the next morning a battle.

It’s Wednesday, 8 a.m.

Alarm clock says: Welcome to October 12th!  It’s 2011!   Back to it

9:45 a.m.

Ditlev was second man up – day two, keynote two.  Upon landing in Austin, TX, he started working on his talk.  The good news- he’d actually been thinking about his topic for some time and only had to filter down the best ideas to fit into the given 60-minute time frame.  If you’re a shared hosting provider, I’d highly suggest getting to know Ditlev on both a personal and professional level.  He’s one of the great innovators in this industry.

Ditlev taught me the word “geek” doesn’t really mean computer nerd but a group of like-minded individuals who share similar interests and are passionate about them.   More importantly, he gave some tasty thought nuggets about selling to geeks, the mass market, and late adopters.  I realize I’m more likely on an average day to have a G2G (Geek to Geek) transaction, versus a B2B (Business to Business) one.  Hooray for having the world’s best job.   

10:50 a.m.

Ditlev just delivered the state of the union address – it’s time to make the rounds.  Blast into the Exhibit Hall.  Lunch with KB and Johnny from CentOS.  Meet with Open-Xchange.  Meet with GlobalSign.  Meet with Logaholic (Log File Geeks).  Picture with Igor and Marv from CloudLinux.  SoftLayer rocket war.  Rob cPStore of more watches, and sunglasses.  Send Dan Ushman packing back to Chicago.

I lost track of time, but the day is over.    

I have no idea what the moral of my story is or why I though it’d be better explained in an informal way.  What I will say is, we proved at the cPanel Conference that it’s totally possible to harmonize education, learning, business networking, and non-stop partying into a single, awesome event.    

So, until we meet again next year, I want to give a special thanks to our kick-ass exhibitors and sponsors, not just for helping make this happen, but for being as passionate about it as we are!   

cPanel, the leading Web Hosting Control Panel Software provider, announced today at its annual conference that Attracta’s Free Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools will become a standard feature in future releases.   

cPanel powers the web hosting industry with its point-and-click software that automates the provisioning and management of websites.  The tens of millions of website owners who host their websites with cPanel’s hundreds of hosting partners use cPanel’s easy-to-use interface to manage every aspect of their websites. The bundling of Attracta adds the ability to easily manage their search engine presence with point-and-click SEO Tools.

As the Internet matures, and more businesses have websites, two things are happening:  the web hosting industry is getting more competitive, and it’s getting harder for website owners to make their sites stand out.  Attracta’s SEO Tools help solve both of these problems through giving web hosts a way to be more competitive by providing their customers with the tools to more effectively promote their websites.

Attracta is the world’s largest SEO service.  Over one million websites use the Attracta suite of tools to increase their traffic search traffic.

Attracta’s Free SEO Tools include:

• 1,000 page XML Sitemap Submission to Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask
• Google Blacklist Check
• Link Building Tools
• Social Networking Tools
• SEO Tips and Tutorials

Website owners who want more traffic can upgrade to paid plans that include automated SEO Tools and XML Sitemap submission, along with guaranteed listings in up to 100 of the world’s top search engines.

“Attracta is one of the first third party integrations to ever to be bundled in cPanel” said Aaron Philips, cPanel VP of Operations.  “Every website needs traffic, and since Attracta’s XML Sitemap technology has proven to work well for our customers, it only made sense to include it as a core feature of our control panel software”.

“cPanel is the world’s most popular Web Hosting automation.  When two industry leaders join forces the market benefits by having greater access to technology that helps both websites owners and web hosts become more successful” said Troy McCasland, VP of Business Development for Attracta. 

About Attracta:
Founded in 2009 by a team of successful Internet entrepreneurs in Napa, CA, Attracta develops innovative search engine visibility technology that helps customers of all sizes build search engine traffic. With over one million websites using its services, Attracta has quickly become the world’s most popular Search Engine Optimization provider. The company sells its services directly, and through a channel of web hosts, web designers and search industry agencies. For more information, visit http://www.Attracta.com or call 888-317-3994.

About cPanel:
Since 1997, cPanel has been a leading innovator and developer of control panel software for the web hosting industry. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, cPanel builds software that allows web host professional to transform standalone servers into fully automated point-and-click web hosting platforms. cPanel licensed software allows owners of servers and websites, along with resellers and developers, to optimize their technical resources and replace tedious shell-oriented tasks with dynamic, intuitive web- based interfaces. For more information, visit http://www.cpanel.net

Big news! We are proud to announce the debut of the cPanel Certification Program at this year's cPanel Conference!

We have spent the last 12 months evaluating, training, and certifying tests for this program, aptly called cPanel University, or cPU.

We created this highly credible certification program so that employers and employees would be allowed to accurately gauge their respective cPanel skill levels.

The cPanel University debut, which will take place at cPanel Conference this October in Austin, TX,  will include a full walkthrough of the program requirements, live tests, and feedback from customers and partners.

"cPanel University will challenge the skills of those taking the exams, and reward those who pass with the confidence of knowing they have a solid understanding of cPanel’s software" said Technical Product Specialist David Grega, one of the designers of cPanel University.

The cPanel Certification process comprises two programs: sales and technical. The technical certification program consists of seven levels while the sales program has 10 levels. The first three levels of each program will be publicly available to all registered cPanel Conference attendees. Enrollees will be able to schedule onsite testing. Additional training for advanced skills will be made available in various locations around the globe, at the corporate offices and at future cPanel Conferences beginning the first quarter of 2012.

The final four technical and six sales tests will be available at a later date and will only support live, in-person testing.

Typically, the content at cPanel Conference provides attendees with quality technical material that web hosting providers can utilize to automate their operations. It is no surprise that cPanel University will also be focused on providing a challenging testing mechanism that will provide test-takers with a difficult yet rewarding experience.

Interested participants will quickly notice that the testing process is not for those unfamiliar with cPanel. The software that will test participants requires a 90 percent in order to pass each test. The timed exams also have open-style essay questions that are scored by cPanel in-house experts. Test takers are also limited to a set number of attempts over a certain period of time.

cPanel is looking toward making the certification program a regular part of cPanel Conference. cPanel also plans to extend cPanel University training by traveling to corporate offices beginning in the first quarter of 2012.

If you believe you already have what it takes to be at the top of the class at cPanel University, register for cPanel Conference 2011 - Automation Bootcamp at http://bootcamp.cpanel.net.

There is plenty of information about conference-related events, updated exhibitor information, and a social connect feature that will allow you to interact with cPanel staff and other conference attendees.

Please note that only registered conference attendees are eligible to take the certification exams. You can also contact us by emailing professor(at)cpanel(dot)net.

We are proud to announce that registration is now available via our cPanel Conference 2011 website, http://bootcamp.cpanel.net.

Automation Bootcamp is back with more exhibitors and opportunities to learn and network. There are a few changes taking place at this year's conference that will provide attendees and exhibitors with a richer experience.

New City, New Venue
First, after receiving feedback from past attendees, exhibitors, customers, Partners, and friends, we have decided to take cPanel Conference on the road. This year's conference will take place at the Sheraton in downtown Austin Oct. 10-12.

We also acknowledged the need for a larger exhibit and session facility. So now we are well equipped with an exhibit hall that will accommodate more than 30 exhibitors with 10x10 booths.

Featured Keynotes and Improved Sessions
cPanel Conference welcomes our first two featured keynote speakers, Ditlev Bredahl of OnApp and Lance Crosby of SoftLayer. Bredahl, whose keynote is titled, "So You're in the Hosting Business. What's the Big Idea?" will discuss the key factors that are required to succeed and stand out from the crowd in the hosting business. 

Crosby, whose keynote is titled, "Top 10 Automation Tips to Improve Operational Efficiency and Customer Experience," will share his top 10 tips based on the SoftLayer philosophy that if something is manually done more than twice it ought to be automated.

 In addition to these outstanding keynote speakers, we have created three session tracks-- Dev, Admin, and General Learning-- to give our attendees a more targeted learning experience.

Memorable Events
Finally, in true cPanel fashion, we are planning some great pre-, mid-, and post-conference events. You will want to stay at this year's conference until the very end!

Visit http://bootcamp.cpanel.net to learn more about cPanel Conference 2011 and to register.

A 50 percent early-bird registration discount is available until August 15!

Please contact us at bootcamp@cpanel.net if you have any questions.

We'll see you in October!