Photo-A-Day #1747

Our last day in Vegas was over way too soon. We started the morning packing up everything and then heading back to the Sao Paolo Cafe for a hearty breakfast. Then it was a quick trip to the Blogger’s Lounge for posting of posts and photos and catching up on e-mails. After that, a walk back up to the Penn and Teller Theater to see the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards and keynote speaker Brian Clark (@copyblogger) of Copyblogger.com.

Brian’s keynote was okay, he sort of lost me with all the musical references/song examples and that seemed to break his flow up but also made me lose what little grasp I was having over what he was saying. He referred too much to another blogger regarding something that he assumed we had all read. I was immediately disinterested in that because Brian is brilliant on his own merits and I would have liked to have heard more from him and not his take one someone else’s thoughts. He also had this slacker too cool for school english teacher vibe going that just wasn’t working for me either.

The thing is, I love listening to his videos and presentations because he is funny and fantastic with the multimedia. Had he done something like that I think it would have really been fantastic. But, as of this writing I’ve pretty much forgotten the point of the keynote. I did take away something like, you don’t have to be a rockstar to everyone just to the community you build or something like that.

I spent much of the time during the keynote on twitter, shooting photos and downloading the movie, “The Hangover” for our ride home. I accidentally downloaded the movie twice, once to the home computer and once to my laptop. I should stop ordering through the website and do it through the Amazon.com UnBox software. That works much better. I screwed up anyway and rented both the unrated and rated versions. Live and learn.

After the keynote we headed back to the blogger lounge where we met up with Tim Jones and we did a buzz through the exhibit hall. It was the one place that we hadn’t been yet. We walked the whole thing, picked up a little bit of swag, entered a few contests and talked with a few people. The best conversation inside was with Brent of ShareASale. We were bowling next to him on Sunday night at the Strike Out Breast Cancer Bowling Fundraiser. He and I were actually sharing a bowling ball. Brent’s a local guy from Boston but not there now because ShareASale is located in Chicago. Brent was really nice to chat with and I enjoyed talking to him because ShareASale is one of my favorite affiliate companies and one of the first ones I signed up with because of iFrogz. I also am part of the BowlingShirt.com program, MakeBeer.net program and the Affiliate Summit and Blog World Expo programs. I like ShareASale because each of their programs sells something I beleive in and that makes it something I like to market. I am confident that what I am marketing are good products because I’ve either tried them or own the products myself.

After the exhibit hall we popped back into the Blogger Lounge. There I had an interview with Morgan Linton (@domainvestors). Morgan talked to me for his podcast and also after the interview asked me a few tips on branding himself online and changing so that he was more personal in his Social Media interaction and not just a corporate brand. It was great talking to him about this and it still floors me every time someone wants my opinion on personal branding and what to do, but I am confident in what I know about the subject or else I wouldn’t have created Personal Branding 101.

Lunch was In And Out Burgers hand delivered by our amazing friend Dina Riccobono. She also brought us some long sleeve MarketLeverage T-Shirts (Thank you!). We are so happy for Dina because she just scored an amazing gig with 1938 Media. That in itself tells me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Loren Feldman is one smart guy.

Eventually it was time for us to make our way to the front desk to get our bags and hop a cab to the airport. The ride from the Rio wasn’t that expensive either, thank goodness, I’m still clutching that $100 to start our new venture on Thursday. More on that Thursday, though.

Airport was the airport no major lines or delays. The plane was not packed (so happy for that) and we enjoyed watching The Hangover. I’m pretty sure I let out one of my insane belly laughs that probably woke up a bunch of people. It was fun seeing all the places in Las Vegas that were in the movie especially after having been there a number of times myself. Now I can stop turning to Allison during CSI and telling her I’ve been there and that is such and such a hotel. I should have stopped doing that after the first trip but sometimes I can’t help myself. Now she can turn and do it right back to me.

Affiliate Summit West 2010 was fantastic, the one thing I do regret however was leaving before it was over. It just motiavtes me more to get my butt in gear and provide you with more value and become a better blogger so that I can do this sort of thing all the time. From the sessions to the parties to the individual networking events we had a wonderful time. I look forward to coming back next year as well, but first, Affiliate Summit East 2010 and this weekend’s Wordcamp Boston.

Lastly, but most importantly it was so nice to get away with Allison and introduce her to many of my friends and even more important than that was being able to get away with Allison…. alone. This is the first trip ever for us without Eva since Eva was born. While we missed the heck out of our little sweetheart and we know that she had tons of fun with her Aunties it was still good to get some time to ourselves. We are so grateful to our family for taking care of Eva while we were gone. We really appreciated that more than they know.