What Value Do You Get From SEO Conferences?

Sunday I’ll be taking off to San Jose for a week at Search Engine Strategies. Earlier this year I spoke at SES New York, but in San Jose I’ll be going as press. Which means I get a free pass and I’m expected to write about my experience. That’s a decent trade-off!

Four weeks after that I’ll be headed to Ohio for the much smaller, but far more intimate Small Business Marketing Unleashed. Here I will be speaking in two sessions, the first on website architecture and the second will be an SEO workshop.

With that in mind, I wanted to pose a few questions: What value do you get out of going to these big conferences? Are they any better or worse than smaller, more intimate conferences? Which do you prefer, and what do you come home with of value (other than quality schwag)?

Please opine.