So I'm reading this morning's Twitter backlog and I see that Seth Godin is noting the milestone of his reaching 5000 blog posts.
There's a pretty good chance I've been blogging longer than Seth. It's probably close enough to be called a tie. But I don't have a dozen books nor receive 2000 likes on a given post. Hell, this blog doesn't even have a dedicated Twitter account (even though my coffeehouse was the first cafe in the world to adopt Twitter back in March 2007).
Now, I'm not going to suggest I could've been a wildly successful author/speaker/blogger of Seth's calibre. That would be silly. But I could've continued being the most widely-read Seth Godin-esque blogger in the events industry (which I was for awhile).
The thing is, Seth stuck it out. I went in a completely different direction - coffee. I got frustrated that nobody in the events industry was listening. That I was out there on a limb from 2002-2005 spending my personal money to speak at industry events and proselytize social media (at that time, just blogging). I wanted so badly for our industry to start telling stories and building relationships instead of the standard tradeshow/conference business practice of "wham bam thank you ma'am" to sponsors and attendees.
Eventually I realized I was getting nowhere. Actually, it was my wife realizing that I was spending a lot of money and not getting results from it. She's a Katz MBA :-)
So we went into coffee, although I've kept a partnership with Brian and we've done a number of small events together. And I do consulting gigs now and then.
I stopped caring about the industry in general, although I do peek in from time to time to see what going on.
It's more than a decade later and I'm still not that impressed with what's being done vis a vis social in the context of "big" conventions/tradeshows/conferences.
However, next week there's going to be an event that's probably below most people's radar, but which I think can be the bellwether for our industry finally getting it.
The MeetingPool. Making it's debut at AIBTM at the TechBar.
Yes, BizBash has been out there for awhile now and certainly seem to be on top of reporting on what's working in non-traditional event planning and marketing. But they report, they don't innovate. They're not leading the way.
The folks at The MeetingPool could be finally be the ones that connect the dots for our industry. I say this knowing only one of the principals, Dahlia El Gazaar, who I hired at Passkey (and who ultimately replaced me). Dahlia just doesn't tell you something then walk away. She follows up. And follows up again. And makes sure you understand and are on board. And always with a smile.
She's not like me. She doesn't get frustrated and look for greener pastures. Ever. So if Dahlia is involved, I'm paying attention.
I don't know exactly what I'm doing next week yet. I thought I was going to be at MultiScreen Summit in New York and I might still do that as there are some folks who Brian and I might build an event around. And I've got a couple of coffee meetings in Pittsburgh.
But I feel Chicago calling.
The weather is supposed to be warm. A good time for a swim, perhaps?
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