Live From San Jose
I'm writing this as I sit in the speaker's ready room at the San Jose convention center, enjoying not having to use one of the "e-mail stations" littered around the show floor or having to sit on the floor with my laptop. This has been a nice plus for the last couple of shows I've spoken at for SES and I would imagine it would be hard to go back to if I happen to go to a show as just a regular attendee.
This is one of the first shows in a long time where I was able to attend more than just the day I was speaking, so I have actually been here since Monday night. After landing, I quickly took a cab to the hotel where the rest of the board of directors for SES were waiting in the lobby to head out to our fancy dinner that night. They were nice enough to wait for me, so I checked in, threw my bags in my room, and ran back down, ready for a nice meal and several glasses of wine.
My good friend, Kevin, who runs these conferences and I am in debt to for not only getting me on the show circuit but countless other favors over the years (I've returned several of them, but I think I will always be in his debt), and I sat at the head of the table. Despite Kevin's own success, he is big fan of talking about mine, just because they are great stories. His new favorite was the history and eventual sale of The Gag back in March, which he has inflated the sale price on slightly on a few occasions, so I got him in the habit of just called my buyout "a silly amount of money." On the rare occasion that I meet up with Kevin (who lives in New York now), I find I miss having him around. Kevin is so very different than many of my friends that I have here with me in LA. His ability to "tear things up" a bit more than some of my regular stiffs is refreshing and welcome.
Tuesday was my first full show day and I was able to attend a couple of sessions and a few keynote speeches on some topics that I feel will provide some good reasons why my staff and I should continue to be allowed to attend these shows. Now, Tuesday night, was one of those gigantic parties that you hope upper management doesn't hear about as I'm sure it always appears to be frivolous and excessive.
The party in question was the legendary "Google Dance", which is held every year during this show and is famous for its size... and its free t-shirt, oddly enough. The event was held on the Google campus and was just loaded with food, drink, and people... sweet tap dancing christ, the people. The group I rode in with, which was made up of board members that came over on a special "party bus" were quickly lost in the sea of show attendees and Google staff. After eating and getting a drink, I started making laps of the grounds until I found a friendly face, that of some of the show coordinators that have saved my ass on a couple of occasions in being flexible with travel schedules, etc. I also kept running into many a ghost of jobs' past in the form of old bosses, old agencies, old co-workers, and so forth so that I rarely had a moment where I wasn't retelling the story of how things have been since I last saw them all.
I actually made it home at a decent time, but still slept in a little longer than usual. Meanwhile, back at the ranch of the day job, a few wheels have managed to come off the wagon, as always seems to happen when I leave the office for more than a day. I will say that the disasters feel a lot better than under the old boss. To counter the win of launching the new affiliate program, our old program is experiencing data issues that my presence in the office would not have made any better. Also, there appears to be some sort of revolt of the QA staff that is forcing some of my team's projects from being launched today; however, again, I doubt me being in the office would make it any better. The summer promotion advertising did launch, though, so wins and losses, wins and losses.
I think I am going to wander into one of the sessions for a bit until my 2pm call to help with getting the QA issue under control. After that, I should be able to return to enjoying the show and another part tonight (the "Search Bash"). My speaking engagement is on Thursday afternoon and luckily, I completed writing my new speech yesterday, so I should have more time to practice is rather than writing it!
J.
This is one of the first shows in a long time where I was able to attend more than just the day I was speaking, so I have actually been here since Monday night. After landing, I quickly took a cab to the hotel where the rest of the board of directors for SES were waiting in the lobby to head out to our fancy dinner that night. They were nice enough to wait for me, so I checked in, threw my bags in my room, and ran back down, ready for a nice meal and several glasses of wine.
My good friend, Kevin, who runs these conferences and I am in debt to for not only getting me on the show circuit but countless other favors over the years (I've returned several of them, but I think I will always be in his debt), and I sat at the head of the table. Despite Kevin's own success, he is big fan of talking about mine, just because they are great stories. His new favorite was the history and eventual sale of The Gag back in March, which he has inflated the sale price on slightly on a few occasions, so I got him in the habit of just called my buyout "a silly amount of money." On the rare occasion that I meet up with Kevin (who lives in New York now), I find I miss having him around. Kevin is so very different than many of my friends that I have here with me in LA. His ability to "tear things up" a bit more than some of my regular stiffs is refreshing and welcome.
Tuesday was my first full show day and I was able to attend a couple of sessions and a few keynote speeches on some topics that I feel will provide some good reasons why my staff and I should continue to be allowed to attend these shows. Now, Tuesday night, was one of those gigantic parties that you hope upper management doesn't hear about as I'm sure it always appears to be frivolous and excessive.
The party in question was the legendary "Google Dance", which is held every year during this show and is famous for its size... and its free t-shirt, oddly enough. The event was held on the Google campus and was just loaded with food, drink, and people... sweet tap dancing christ, the people. The group I rode in with, which was made up of board members that came over on a special "party bus" were quickly lost in the sea of show attendees and Google staff. After eating and getting a drink, I started making laps of the grounds until I found a friendly face, that of some of the show coordinators that have saved my ass on a couple of occasions in being flexible with travel schedules, etc. I also kept running into many a ghost of jobs' past in the form of old bosses, old agencies, old co-workers, and so forth so that I rarely had a moment where I wasn't retelling the story of how things have been since I last saw them all.
I actually made it home at a decent time, but still slept in a little longer than usual. Meanwhile, back at the ranch of the day job, a few wheels have managed to come off the wagon, as always seems to happen when I leave the office for more than a day. I will say that the disasters feel a lot better than under the old boss. To counter the win of launching the new affiliate program, our old program is experiencing data issues that my presence in the office would not have made any better. Also, there appears to be some sort of revolt of the QA staff that is forcing some of my team's projects from being launched today; however, again, I doubt me being in the office would make it any better. The summer promotion advertising did launch, though, so wins and losses, wins and losses.
I think I am going to wander into one of the sessions for a bit until my 2pm call to help with getting the QA issue under control. After that, I should be able to return to enjoying the show and another part tonight (the "Search Bash"). My speaking engagement is on Thursday afternoon and luckily, I completed writing my new speech yesterday, so I should have more time to practice is rather than writing it!
J.