What up what up y’allz! Back from that crazy place they call SXSW, and ready to get my blogging back on. Feels like I’ve been away from you for way too long – you better have missed me. Cuz if not, well, I’d be pretty screwed… this is my full-time gig now ya know ;)
There’s a TON I’d like to get out of my head right now, but as it turns out I’m still quite far from recovering. I will say though that it was WELL worth the time! It’s not every day you get surrounded by thousands of INCREDIBLY smart, and like-minded, people all in the same spot like that. And paying $600+ a pop on top of it too! (Not to mention the housing, travel, food, etc etc… everything except the beer – if you couldn’t score that for free, you had no business being there, haha…)
But out of all the panels, and presentations, and all that free swag being handed out left and right, the one thing I enjoyed the most was the networking. Or better put – the CONNECTING. Like, really getting to know someone face-to-face, and learning about who they truly are and how they got there. That was by far the most fun, and productive!, part of the whole trip. And oddly enough that happened more on the dance floor and at parties than it did the conference.
And you know why I think that is? Cuz we weren’t “selling” anything. We were enjoying each others ‘company and not trying to push a product or deal through each others’ throat every second. We were actually ENGAGING for once, and it felt GOOD :) I think that’s the way I wanna do business from now on. I wanna just chill with you and see if I truly believe in YOU, as a person, over you as a company. If we click, and you got some killer ideas, we then go off and make some partnership babies! As simple as that.
I wanna get to know PEOPLE more, and SXSW really opened that up. If you ever get a chance to go, I think you’d like it. Only 364 more days ’till the next one! (The interactive part that is – the music portion’s still going strong!)
PS: Ran into some of our online friends while there, too:
- Jim from Bargaineering
- Adam at Magical Penny
- Erica Douglass from Erica.biz
- Adam Baker from Man vs. Debt
- Cody McKibben at Thrilling Heroics
- And the fabulous Jenny Blake @ Life After College
It’s all about the relationships! We’re all in this together.
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Sounds like an amazing time! Tell us about your free swag!
I totally agree on getting to know a person and if you click, the business is that much easier to endorse/support. I hate when people are all sales pitch with little sincerity.
I only came back with one thing – something I thought was damn cool, and that I could potentially use (I had my minimalism hat on the entire trip — and good thing too cuz crap was flying all over!). I took home one of those Square credit card gadgets that you connect to your iPhone with so you can take your own credit card payments! SOOOOOOOO coool. I’m gonna blog about it soon, but here’s the link for anyone interested in getting one too:
https://squareup.com/
The world’s changing fast!
So jealous of you that you got to meet Jenny and so jealous of Jenny that she got to meet you!
haha… you guys would REALLY get along :) you should hit her up at one of her book signings!!! she’s so excited about it and would LOVE to meet her peeps.
Talk about timing – I just got off the phone laughing, because of the conversation I had with the gentleman who I *will* be purchasing my oxygen regulator from (for my glass torch) – besides oxygen tanks, regulators, flashback arrestors, hoses and torches, we discussed journalism & the AP style manual, and then got into music – turns out he’s also a jazz musician, and we compared notes on the technical complexity and commercial viability of jazz & classical music versus that of mainstream rock, blues, and C&W. I am still smiling (despite the stress and strain of this past week), and I look forward to spending my money with this person. I *hate* the N-word (net-working – it sounds nasty and impersonal to me, and the visual I have is of a computer network diagram), but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the C-word (connections – building and nurturing human connections – my visual for that is people, holding hands and smiling).
Haha, yup. I actually don’t like “networking” either but sounded better in my title ;) “Connecting on the dance floor” seems like I’m about to divulge the secrets of hookin’ up! hahha… which I do know, of course, but not appropriate ;) W00T.
That is so cool! I am always so weary of those large networking events…and I could never turn down the free stuff! lol
Jealous about the Square card… I’ve been wanting to try one of those. So it gets your resounding endorsement… good to know!
@Evan – SXSW is really cool in that there are TONS of stuff going every hour, so you can pick the ones that relate to you the most, or just depending on your mood ;) I think everyone should try it out at least once to experience it – kinda inspirational.
@Jason L – I think you can get one free of their site now! I used it once already and it was pretty cool – emailed me a receipt right after too :) Gonna blog about it soon…
Think you forgot to add @bite4size to that list – just sayin’