Photo-A-Day #1982

I got a great night’s sleep and ended up sleeping a little later than usual so sleep was awesome, how did I end up with a headache, I didn’t even do much drinking last night either. How is that possible? I was able to get my session posted online and get at least one post put up about the Thursday night VIP session. It is tough to keep up with the recaps while you are at a conference. There is just so much going on. I’ll try not to leave anything out.

Right after that session it was time again for breakouts. The next set of sessions had Paul Banas – Dad Media: Hope or Hype?, Donny Claxton, Eric Elkins & Doug Block – Over-sharing: When it comes to your family, how much is too much? and Francisco Gonima – Strategic Volunteerism: Getting ahead by making a difference. I didn’t go to each of these ones today. I just went to the session on Over-sharing because that was one where I wanted to see where these other guys had to say about the topic. I think that over all I’m not doing too bad a job on the over-sharing side of thing.

Lunch break was right after the first session however I again skipped lunch in favor of driving some great cars. Today I drove the Chevy Silverado, the Camaro and the convertible Corvette. Wow, is all I can say about driving some brand new performance vehicles. I’ve never driven a car like the new Camaro, too. What a sweet vehicle. The corvette was nice as well and I drove a little fast in that one on a nice straightaway section of the driving route. The thing that I did today though was I asked the Chevy women riding along with me to hold a video camera as I drove so we could talk about the cars and truck. So far I only have the Chevy Silverado video up but I’ll get the other two going as soon as I can.

I must have been having too much fun in the cars because I was late to one of my favorite sessions at the Summit which was Dave Taylor’s talk on Work/Life Balance. This was a very good session that made me think about the direction I am taking this blog and also working both online and off. I think more consolidation is going to happen starting with absorbing Read to Me, Dad into this blog and doing those children’s book reviews here instead of off site. There are other things coming and I think you’ve already gotten a taste of it but I need to implement them once I am back from our upcoming Disney vacation.

The last set of breakout sessions included Craig Heimbuch- Panel Discussion working with Brands, Kevin Metzger – Dads by the Numbers and Jayson Gaddis – The New Masculine Paradigm. Kevin is my good friend and I did not want to miss a moment of his session, he even brought his daughter Haley with him and I did get to meet her. I am so glad that I finally got my Read To Me, Dad review of “I Am Not Weird” up on the blog. But I had to go from session to session and get more shots, so I missed much of the session but got there for the beginning and the end. I also wanted very much to see Jayson Gaddis’ session and was there for the beginning of that, I felt really bad leaving too because it was so cool and so chill, I hate walking around while people are doing the things they do. I talked to Jayson later and he was cool with it.

The very last session was one with Ted Murphy from IZEA. I must disclose that I love Ted Murphy and all that he has done for me over the years including the complete re-design of this blog little under a year ago. Every leap forward I have made on this blog has had Ted’s help, guidance and support in it so I cannot be biased when talking about Ted. I love the guy, he’s awesome.

That being said, Ted’s session was a good one but not up to the same caliber of getting me fired up as in the past. I think it was the stats that made it not as motivating. The stats were good and show that the horizon has some promise but I sort of zone out when numbers come into play. I don’t think in numbers but rather in images. Luckily Ted had some good images in his presentation as well. That is what got me excited and also being a participant in his overall survey was cool too. Ted always brings his A game anyway. I think that part of the reason for the lesser excitement was that there weren’t many people in attendance. Ted’s a guy who has enough energy to share and that usually radiates through the crowd, the bigger the crowd, the bigger the energy. So, while his talk was a good one overall it didn’t get the big energy for the small crowd.

After all the sessions I hung out with Patrick O’Keefe at the T-Mobile lounge for a bit, had a couple of beers and talked. I met some more people and got to chat with the T-Mobile rep Dan Anderson and we chatted about getting a G2 for me to review, that would be sweet. I’m looking forward to testing that out. I ran upstairs to check on a video, wrote a post and then got back downstairs and caught up with Ted Murphy to go to Stats Sports Bar for the closing VIP party.

Stats is a great downtown bar that is three floors and has over 100 flat screen TVs including ones treated for weather that are out on an outdoor rooftop deck, where we got to hang out. I got to spend a good solid hour or more (I had beers and time flew) one on one with Ted. It was really great to catch up with him and slow down and talk, he’s a man on the move all the time, me I’m easily caught. We kicked back had some great food and talked over a couple of PBRs. I got to funny quick witted Drew tonight and not biting wit Drew.

Ted had to go for a 3:00am con call but I stuck around and while I was there I took a few photos for people and then it started to rain, we went inside and there I spent time talking with a whole bunch of people. I can’t thank Kevin enough for introducing me to Rachel. Then talking with Chris, Rachel, Kevin M. then Dave and Kevin R. It was a great night. We left and continued the conversations at the hotel bar into the fairly early late evening, pre-midnight.

Hanging out with everyone in the alcove laughing and joking and having fun was another great experience of the Modern Media Man Summit. But it was back to my room to me to try and get work done. Didn’t happen, I don’t know where the time went but I didn’t get done nearly everything I wanted to get done. It is okay because my M3 experience wasn’t over yet.