So how is SES under the, cough, leadership of Kevin Ryan

When Kevin Ryan came onto the scene as SES's "new Danny Sullivan", I think many previous SES fans were kind of curious to see what exactly he would do with it. It had been mentioned that Kevin was going to put his own brand on SES, and well, he has done exactly that. Now, since I don't know Kevin very well other than in passing at SES, it is hard to really say what kind of person he is. But he has certainly managed to put his own special, uh, spin on things, to say the least. A spin that has left many shaking their heads and wondering what he's on. Now, it is hard to kind of explain what happened in one particular session today - SEO Rehab, so I will let the following live blogging recaps and Twitter. First, the ever popular and shoe-stylin Lisa Barone:

Kevin spends way too much time talking about rehab and other psychedelic things. He's making me uncomfortable.

Hmmm... psychedelic things.

Kevin Ryan, for as much as I love him, has lost his mind. He's "editing" Dave Naylor's PowerPoint signs with things like "Boser is scary smart", "Gray freaks me out a little", and other such things. And then black hat SEO gets mentioned and Kevin stops the conversation saying he doesn't want a blogger to say that he held a black hat panel.

Yes, Kevin Ryan actually spent a good portion of the time leaning on the podium and editing a powerpoint to spam himself (Twitter, Facebook and Linked In) while ignoring the panelists. TopRankBlog got a great photo. Another few tweets:

SEO Rehab Session...so far, we're talking about cannabis & chocolate cake (by @toddmintz) going to hell in a handbasket quickly... (by @barbaraboser)

Later, in his next panel, Facebook, Feeds and Microblogging, he mocks one of his speakers with this.

@andybeal is a pain in my butt

Hitting up Summize, there are more comments about how Kevin Ryan is acting in his sessions.

That was way too long of an introduction from Kevin Ryan at #SESSJ. This is not about him., Be quiet (by @JohnWEllis) @KevinMRyan is running his second sassy panel in a row... (by @kristenmc)

I don't know about you, but it is kind of scary that this is the face of Search Engine Strategies. It makes me wonder if SES going to continue to be a cutting edge search conference as it was under Danny Sullivan or is Kevin Ryan going to take it downhill with what he perceives to be "humor" with cannabis and psychedelics. When you have bloggers publicly stating their embarrassment and uncomfortable-ness, those are the impressions that the masses of readers are going to be left with, and will help make future conference attendees go with SMX or PubCon over SES, because more than a few attendees and sponsors have said this will be the last SES they attend, which clearly makes you wonder how much of that decision is purely based upon the behavior of Kevin Ryan at the conference so far this week. Maybe others think this kind of behavior of the person supposedly is in charge is good and brings up the college party atmosphere from a more stuffy corporate impression it had at SES New York. But if people want to party, they can go to PubCon. What will make people come back to SES after this whole impression people are left with.