Nearly everything I’m doing and thinking about this week is focused on Affiliate Summit East 2008. For me, it’s not just preparing for the actual event, but the whole experience of going to back to Boston for the first time in two years. Plus, I’m taking a very short vacation to visit with my family in Western Massachusetts after the show.

I used to be able to count on one hand the must-attend shows and conferences related to online marketing for a given year. Plotting out my travel schedule wasn’t much trouble and there wasn’t really any overlap among shows. And for the most part I was also able to tack on a few personal and vacation days to most of my trips in order to simulate actually having a “vacation”.

I like to use events as milestones to get things. Lots of times I’ll just pick a show or conference and decided that I must have X,Y, and Z all finished before, say, Affiliate Summit in Boston. When I initially make the plan, the event always seems so far off – giving me plenty of time to plow through the long list of must-do’s. But along the way other things crop up, I get sidetracked, or I find some other excuse to delay doing what needs to be done.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has been closely monitoring the developments of the New York Internet Sales Tax issue. Yesterday the DMA’s Tax Counsel, George Isaacson, issued a brief analysis of the June 30, 2008 Technical Services Bulletin (TSB) related to the Internet/Affiliate Nexus Law.

Many of the merchants and publishers that I’ve been talking with this week are focused on the holidays. And while, the holidays for me, right now, mean the Fourth of July and my sweetie’s upcoming 40th birthday – these folks were referring to Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.