Been a busy period lately. Franky I'll be glad for some down time. We were in Italy as you may recall for 16 days. That was exhausting. I got home, picked up a new project, picked up a potential project that required me to be in Vegas for Software 2008 this past week, and then in San Jose for a day (not a day and a night, a day trip). The crazy part was I flew to Vegas from Denver for the conference, then on Thursday (I didn't even sleep wed night, since I had project work to do) at 4:30 I headed to the airport to go to San Jose for the day for Conference business, then around 4pm I flew back to vegas, for a 7pm flight to Denver. Of course it wasn't the same airlines or 'connecting' flights so I had to go through security each time. Oh and the crazy snow storm we had in Denver, delayed my 7pm flight until around 9:30ish. Frontier FTW!

oh yeah, new TV. So ours died and Circuit city lied about how much a DLP bulb would run us, so we ended up with a new 52" plasma TV from Samsung and a Panasonic home theater. Being tricked into a new TV sucks, but I will say, it also freaking rocks! now of course I wish we had an HD TiVo, bt oh well. the PS3 with it it's Blue Ray drive will suffice, we're even thinking of trying out netflix.

The new employment thing is completely speculative really. Tom and I got an email from someone we've talked to numerous times since our first 360|Flex. This past thursday we got an email that was pretty interesting, it could potentiall be a new job, doing what we love or maybe they just want a banner exchange, who knows. Exciting though, can't wait to see how that goes.

Oh yeah, saw Iron Man last night. Great movie actually. A marvel character not completely fucked up my the director, good job dude! if you go see it, make sure to sit through the end credits. neat little tidbit at the end.

I should rephrase that. I'm commonly the one who's "the asshole" in my business, however it's more for being the one who doesn't dance around fragile egos, and incompetents . A weakness of mine, for sure.

Tom sent me this Forbes article and it really hit home. Some of it.

This quote really hit home, Tom even included it in his email to me.

From James Sorenson, the largest shareholder in Abbott Laboratories.

From there it sort of degenerated I have to admit. I have great respect for anyone who can "Make it" as it were, but I worry that "making" it leads more often than not to becoming an ass hat ego maniac.  Clearly some are better able to resist basking in their own shadow, but many, at least of those Forbe's spoke to, weren't

When asked about their favorite book, many said it was either a book they had written or whichever book they were writing. Really? You see yourself as that good of a writer? No one else has anything to say or write, worth hearing or reading? I've read plenty of business books and most are so full of shit it's sad. Most are simply vessels for ego stroking "I'm successful because I'm great and this is how I did it." shit like that, that is useless as far as actually teaching anything.

When asked who'd they like to sit down for a drink with, many said themselves. Really? You're so into yourself that there's no one you'd like to sit and talk with? Not the Dali Lhama? Not a great writer? Not another business person who's been successful? No many said they'd like to sit and talk to themselves, no one else is worthy or your time and or attention?

I have to say, knowing that, I'm in no way inclined to ever WANT to talk to some of these men. I don't believe you have to act like that to be successful, I don't believe that success makes you the center of any universe. Know now how these people feel, I don't feel that they have anything to tell me that will help me in my business. That's sad.

This really hit home for me. Tom and I butt heads on some of this a lot, and whether it changes anything for 360Conferences or not, it's good to see that my take on things isn't "out there".

I wasn't gonna quote anyof the post, simply saying "Click the link and read the whole thing." But then I thought, this is the internet and while nothing truly goes away, it can certainly move. So below is the text of the post, but definitely click the link, the comments are worth the read as well.

Enjoy

Figured I'd do a post to wrap up my last few weeks since they've been a bit silent.

February 25-27 was 360|Flex Atlanta, the third event my company has organized. The first to turn a profit, albeit small. w00t!!

Tom (business partner) and I landed Friday, met with our hotel rep, ran some errands, etc. We spent the weekend, stuffing folders, copying files to USB drives, tracking packages, stuffing and alphabetizing badges, buying a PS3, blah blah blah.

Sunday was our free hands on "Flex 101" session all day. It was a huge hit. We planned for 50, and had 80 people show up. It was also early badge pickup, which always helps make Monday morning less  hectic. Word of advice, copying files to a 1gb USB drive, is SLOW, you can't do it on the fly. Lesson learned.

Sunday night we had our Speaker Sponsor dinner ( our way of thanking them), followed by welcome reception for attendees. If you're in the ATL hit Stats up. good food, sweet atmosphere, all around great place!

Monday was keynote one, where Tom and I say hello, thanks for coming, make a few announcements, corrections, etc, then hand off to Adobe to wow the audience. We had the pleasure of being the launch event for Flex 3 and AIR 1, which kicked ass!

Monday night's party was Adobe's and it was good. Tom and I under planned for food (that happens when you have your reg numbers swell over 100% in 30 days) but otherwise it was a good time.

Tuesday, no keynote. Tuesday is our Day of Rest i suppose. it's the only "normal" day at the conference. The party was hosted by two of the bigger Flex shops in the game, both local to Denver, neat! Was a great party, and when the beer budget ran out, both sponsors split the tab and "re-opened" the bar! Gotta love that.

The Wednesday keynote is my favorite. It's when Tom and I practice what we preach, transparency and conversation. We give a mid level review of expenses and income, showing what food, A/V, hotel, etc all cost, and what we brought in from attendee tickets, and sponsorships. Like I said above, Atlanta turned a profit. Not much, but at least it shows that our model of doing events isn't flawed. We also explained why we gave out 300 copies of the Cluetrain Manifesto. I'm really glad we did, I think it'll open a lot of eyes. We talked about one of our sponsors who couldn't make it for medical reasons, we talked about one of our sponsors who gave his extra sponsor attendee codes to students and those who couldn't afford to attend.

I think I like the Wednesday keynote the most because it's the one people talk about. It's the one people come up to us after and thank us for our openness and transparency. "No other conference gives that info out" get's said a lot on Wednesday. I like that, because I'm hopeful that it leads to change. The conference (tech mainly, but I'm sure it extends to freezer food, and cabbage patch kids too) industry is so corrupt and greedy that it needs change.

So that was up thru the 27th. Week ain't even over! Normally after an event Tom and I return home and enjoy some time not thinking about conferences. Not this time!

Thursday we cleaned up, packaged and sent off boxes of "stuff" to our homes, sent the stand for our big board back to it's home, had breakfast with the hotel reps (great ladies!).

At 5:30 we were on a plane bound for Milan, Italy. Sight of 360|Flex Europe, which was taking place just over a month away. The good thing about the flight to Milan, was that it was only 8 hours, and was through the night. We landed at 10:30 in the morning, slept most of the night, and weren't completely whacked out.

We had exactly 1 and 1/2 days in Milan. After training, then tubing to the hotel we met our hotel rep, Carla, who showed us the venue, talked about catering, etc., then it was nap time, LOL. We went out that night for dinner near the Duomo, which by the way is SWEET!

Saturday was just sightseeing, planning etc. Tom and I talked over plans for the conference, ways to get numbers up, etc. Then we went back to the Duomo for official sightseeing.

Sunday morning we Tubed, then Trained, back the Malpensa Airport and were on our 11 hour and some change, flight back to Atlanta. That flight sucked! Mainly because it was all daylight, we left at 10am(ish) and landed in ATL at 4pm(ish) do and then still had a 3 hour (for me, 6 for Tom) flight home. So all in all Sunday was SUPER LONG.

To wrap it all up, the persistent cough I had when I was in Atlanta, and Milan, turned into a full bore cold moments after walking in the front door to the house.... weak!

So that was my week, last week.

I can't believe I've forgotten to mention this! Back around November I was asked to become the co-host of the The Flex Show, of course I accepted! I started recording in January, tonight was my third show. it's a great deal of fun, I'm still getting used to doing interviews; coming up with questions, being able to come up with follow up questions as the interviewee talks, etc.

I can't wait to do more shows, meet new people in the industry, learn new things. Should be fun!

I'm also hoping it helps in my conference business, getting my name out there a bit, getting me a little better known.

The RWW has an interesting article on working from home.

They make some very cool obversations, most of which I'm in total agreement.

Commuting, I don't do it. I hate it. I left CA and vowed that commuting was not something I'd start doing again. So far so good.

Flexibility, the bank is open during the day, most installers come during the day, etc. Being able to run errands, when most are working, that's so freakin' great! Plus, if I'm in the mood to work from Starbucks, or the roof top deck, or anywhere else for that matter, I can.

Saving Money and the environment. Huh, never thought about that much, but obviously gas expenses are way down, good for money and yeah i guess the environment.

Productivity, well duh! I've been screaming this from every rooftop I've been able to climb. I get up, I walk across the hall sit down and start working, coffee in hand, zone bar on the desk. No driving for an hour, no being cranky and physically drained before the day even begins. All the while, my day started at the same time, and ends about the time I'd normally get home from commuting, do that math, that's a longer day than most "commuters" since I'm in no hurry to "beat traffic" or stop by the store on the way home. So many employers can't grasp the concepts, it's quite annoying most times.

The listed Cons are all pretty much spot on, and "holly" adds a completely non-sensical one.

"I think you're missing the biggest drawback to telecommuting - If you don't need to be in the office, maybe it's cheaper for your company to outsource or contract your work. More and more jobs that you don't think of as typically outsourced, like ad design, are becoming so. Ad production is being shipped overseas to India and other technology-savvy countries for pennies on the dollar. With the time difference, ads are turned around within 24 hours.

I know I would love to telecommute, but I also know that could bethe impetus for my company to realize that someone in a cubicle in adeveloping country could be doing for job for a fraction of the cost."

Really, Holly? You think your sitting in a cube wasting resources all day, is what keeps your job safe? What makes you valuable? Talk about a wholly sad outlook on your career. I wonder if she goes to bed, praying not to be outsourced. Sad.

Today Nicole and her mom and sister headed to Ikea to do some shopping. I tagged along, since there was a Starbucks in the vicinity, I was hoping to get some work done.

Talk about being thwarted left right and sideways.

We get to Ikea for some $.99 breakfast action. i load up google maps for mobile to get my bearings. I plug in the address for Ikea, then the address for Starbucks. A third of a mile, great, I'll walk. i like to walk, and .3 miles is a bit silly to drive.

Oy.

My first and biggest mistake was in not seeing that Google maps mobile had plotted the position of Ikea and starbucks as being on the opposite side of Potomac Mills.

So I head off in the direction we thought I should. After about a half mile (remember it was .3 from Ikea) I turn around, thinking we've misjudged. Back to Ikea, then over in the opposite direction. I walk about another half mile and see one of the streets that google maps had indicated. Huh. ok must be .3 miles from this street. So I keep walking.

I walk past the next street, where the starbucks should be. huh, nothing. I keep walking. Still nothing. I walk up another street out of the "loop" of the mills. I walk and walk, getting lost almost, head back into the mills loop. Still no starbucks. I finally call....

"Oh, we're inside the Mills, next to the food court." Say wha?

By now, I've walked around this damn mall of malls out and around, and over and under, and the freakin' starbucks is inside!?

So i enter the mills. I walk, and walk, and walk and FINALLY find a starbucks.

I sit down, with my Venti Mocha Frap and start working.... Get the latest code, Errors. errors upon errors. I can't compile.

I spend 30 minutes fixing them... then the app no worky.... GRRR

That was my day... I've got code I need to write by friday, and still no working environment... Maybe tomorrow will be better.

It's not as neat as one might think... if one might think seeing a handicapped (she was in a rascal type device) homeless woman in her 50's at least pee in the door way of your office...

i was at work late tonight working on getting my project into beta and  a homeless lady wheels up to the side of the office. Our office has several doors, most aren't used. each is in a  small alcove, all glass. She wheeled up to mine, hopped out of the rascal, and started to drop trow... All our windows are tinted and have a privacy shade, so there's no way to see in. I knocked on the window so she would know someone was there... she remounted her 'ride' and scooted on down the sidewalk...

To the next door. This time my boss and his boss were there, along with another coworker. She must have heard our agonized screams because again, midway through the dropping of trow, she pulled 'em up and proceeded down the sidewalk...

To the next door!! This time there was nothing to do but run away, so we did. To the other side of the building where our eyes could avoid catching fire from the sight. After a few minutes... all that was left as evidence of her passing... a puddle, in a doorway we will NEVER USE AGAIN....

Thought I'd share.

So one of the bloggers I blog with over here, emailed this to the city list. The tag line is funny, i have to admit, but that's about all i'll give them.

Mainly I just don't get it, what's it have to do with Denver? There's like one post about DIA, the rest are lame posts about (largely) ad agency crap.

I told the team, what I'm saying here publicly. "I call BS"

From what I can tell, this is probably some ad agency (local at least, I would hope) hoping to be "edgy" or cool or something. Probably hoping to cause a stir, or get some press or something as well. All to raise "brand awareness"

LAME

Get over yourselves, maybe change your tag line to "helping ad agencies suck less, one day at a time."

Whoops, a link, though I don't think they deserve any extra traffic, might be nice. Take a look

Nicole and I are home. We landed last night, here around 7:30pm ish and me around 12:20am ish. Yeah two flights. She booked later than I did, and on a different airline, so that was as close as we could get :(

Both flights didn't suck and weren't too late.

Last week was a whirlwind of activity. Tom and I did our second 360|Flex conference. The only comparison to the first (San Jose) is really that they didn't compare at all. This was our first 'real on our own' effort. Lots of challanges, lots of kudos from attendees and sponsors.

We spent the weekend prior running around doing errands, making 140 welcome baskets, stuffing 350 folders with sponsor materials, making fools of ourselves at a Michael's (we're guys, what else could we do there?)

Sunday night kicked off with a dinner for speakers and sponsors, our way of saying "thanks" to all the great people and companies that helped make the conference a reality and the top of class event it was. Right after that, was another dinner, and party for everyone. Attendees showed up to pick up their shirts, folders, and badges, and enjoy some pizza and beer. We also had a Guitar hero tournament, which was crazy popular.

Monday was day one. Keynote. I'm actually getting less nervous doing those, that's good since 300+ sets of eyes is a lot of people and I'm glad the initmidation is diminishing with each time.

The next three days (Mon-Wed) were a blur. Conference running during the day, parties at night, schmoozing all over the place, making sure to make enough connections for the future events and such.

Wednesday's keynote was our focus on transparency, and community talk. We showed everyone a little bit of what it takes and costs to do a conference (input about 130k or so. output, about 140k or so). We then turned the mic over to a few community projects/companies, building things in Flex, giving them a chance to show off a little, explain their product, or even just give a peak at a session later that day.

After the conference ended, we had a group dinner at the Space Needle. Eh food, but great views, and great company.

Thursday, mom and Portia and Nicole and I hung out in Seattle. We did the underground tour (met Jeff and Tammi from the conference by coincidence), then rode the ducks, then dinner at the hotel.

Friday we drove up to my grandparents, in Brewster. We hung out a bit with them, Nicole hadn't ever met my extended family so that was great! We then headed over to Omak (no kidding, google map it ) for dinner with some of my aunts, uncles, cousins, kids of cousins, etc.

It was great seeing everyone, it's been maybe 5 years or more, since I've seen them, it was kinda bittersweet to leave grandma and grandpa on saturday morning, to head to the airport.

Hopefully our next visit won't be another 5+ year later type of event.

All in all a busy and great! weekend.

My own disclaimer, I don't read JPG, nor had I heard of it before this. Not a very good way to get noticed I have to say.

Tom sent me a link to Derek's Blog where Dereck tells his side of the story. On first read, my gut reaction was "damn that other guy is a dick". I then read Heather's post, and thought, "Wow, that's some serious crap to pull on someone."

I then tracked down Paul's blog, and found the post where he attempts to smooth things over. In reading his completely impersonal account I was reminded of my reading of Cluetrain (I should read that again, soon) where they talk about business communications being more than shoving information out the door, treating consumers as mindless or stupid (paraphrasing here), rather than simply holding a conversation with them. I'm reminded of the Intel Pentium 90 debacle and how Intel had handled it.

From this it sounds like Dereck got it.

"In one evening, Paul removed issues 1-6 from the JPG website, removed Heather from the About page, and deleted the “Letter from the Editors” that had lived on the site since day one. Paul informed me that we were inventing a new story about how JPG came to be that was all about 8020. He told me not to speak of that walk in Buena Vista, my wife, or anything that came before 8020."

From this, it's clear Paul doesn't

"The first version of JPG Magazine was created by the husband and wife team of Derek Powazek and Heather Powazek Champ. It was a quarterly printed publication devoted to brave new photography that took submissions over the internet and printed on good old fashioned paper. It was edited by Derek and Heather, printed in digest format, and sold through Lulu.com."

First version? So JPG magazine is nothing like JPG magazine? I don't think Microsoft (though they might want to) disavows knowledge of Windows ME, 3.11, etc... Instead simply saying, "we did some stuff before, but really it's all about this new thing" Not to mention it sounds from Dereck's blog that he had a major hand in JPG Magazine 2.0, so unless they're on 3.0 it seems a bit disingenuous to cut them out like they had no part in this new version.

To be honest the concern over titles has surfaced in my own mind with the ventures that Tom and I undertake. He's the CEO of 360Conferences, and I'd be lying if a stray worry about the above happening to us didn't cross my mind. I've even brought it up and we've talked about it, including the time on the Metrolink (Tom knows). I can only hope our friendship and for that matter our business ethics and opinions on how business should work, keep this type of seriously shitty behavior from ever surfacing at 360Conferences.