"I am not quitting, I am just planning my comeback"

I was thumbing through Canadian Business Magazine two months ago and found a quote that stuck with me. The quote was from Michael Lee-Chin talking about selling his "baby", the investment company AIC. When asked how he could walk away from his dream he simply said:

"I am not quitting, I am just planning my comeback."

I love this quote and have been thinking about this for a while since I started a new role at my job. I haven't spoken about this publicly yet so I guess this is an announcement of sorts but I am no longer part of the day to day operations of Zoocasa.com and have moved to a larger role as Evangelist/Strategist within Rogers Ventures (an investor in Zoocasa.com) and will be adding what I can across all the porfolio companies as needed.

For the next little while I will be focusing most of my attention on Thoora.com but like everything I do I will never beat you over the head with messaging and such. I am always going to be me and I hope you all watch what I am up to in this very exciting time in my life.

One that like Micheal Lee-Chin, I am treating like my comeback opportunity.

I have a new job!

SO if you know anything about me or have read this blog before you will know that I, until a few days ago worked for FreshBooks.

Yes you read that right when I typed "until a few days ago". Don't pretend you didn't see it cause it was only a line before I re-typed it.

Anyway, I have decided to leave FreshBooks to become the HEAD OF...wait a second, before I tell you what I am up to now it is only right to talk about the job I just left.

FreshBooks was the single best job I ever had (including working for myself) and I have so many amazing experiences because of my time there. I owe so much to the people involved with FreshBooks (the Staff, the Customers and the friends I made along my travels) and know that it is the people I will miss the most....even though I am going to try my best to keep up with everyone...and that isn't just talk.

I don't want my departure to hurt or effect FreshBooks in anyway so I hope anyone who liked watching what FreshBooks was up to for whatever reason will continue to do so as it really is a pretty special company and an amazing product...and those who are wondering what this means for the FreshBooks twitter account...I urge you all to still follow as you wont notice a change at all since I haven't been writing it for a month or more and @rlangdon is rocking the account as well as I ever did because her and I share the same ideas on how to make a really great company twitter voice.

SO there ya have it...and what does it all mean?

Well as of a week ago I started a new role and a new chapter in my career. I am now the Head of Magic, Head of Interesting Stuff or just Head of Stuff (still deciding on the title) for Zoocasa.com

Zoocasa.com is a new way to search online for a home in Canada because it allows you to search by what is really important to you...things like neighborhoods, schools or even shops or services.

...now if you are asking yourself why I would leave FreshBooks (the best job I ever had) to jump over to Zoocasa, I can only really offer you one explanation.

I love a challenge and crave responsibility...Heck, I want to be a household name for my business abilities and not just for being a good kisser, and to accomplish this I need to take a chance.

All this may sound weird but at Zoocasa I am getting the opportunity to build a brand from the earliest possible stage. My fingerprints are going to be all over this and that not only excites me, but also my enormous ego.

SO now that you know what is up with me I invite you to please check out Zoocasa.com as soon as you can...then check it again in 2 weeks and 2 weeks after that because this is going to look more and more like me with every passing month and if I do a good job you get to share my passion and witness my creativity...and if I fail, you can point your finger and laugh...but either way I ask that you watch what I am up to because I pour my heart into everything I do and at the very least I promise it will be an entertaining ride.

Cause when the going gets tough....will the you be going?

[Disclaimer: I work for FreshBooks.com and I am pretty lucky cause FreshBooks is one of the best places to work in the entire world. That being said this post is my opinion and only my opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of anyone else besides little ole' me]

One of the best things about my job are that I get to talk to hundreds of people every week about their lives and their jobs and it gives me a clear picture on what is going on in the world.

So using this insight I have to tell you all that I am really surprised by the fact that one of the real results I am seeing due to the economic downfall is that some companies are treating their own staff poorly. Now I understand layoffs if they are for financial reasons but I don't understand when employers don't recognize that their own people are their most valuable resource.

My CEO at FreshBooks is a handsome guy named Mike McDerment and he always talks about how "if you take care of your staff, your staff will take care of your customers and your customers take care of your business."

As you can see Mike is not just handsome but also pretty sharp because this makes sense in any economy but in this current climate it rings more true than ever.

Simply put, When times get tougher it is easy to panic or even give up and some people will...and this will create huge opportunities for the folks who are willing to jump on them and not give up.

So how do you do this, well...best way is to treat your staff well...heck, dare I say like family and show them that if they work hard and stick out the hard times you are going to stick with them and you are all in this thing together. A great example of this is how when you hear celebrities talk about their humble beginnings and they always say "I never know we were poor because my parents always provided something for me". Something doesn't have to be a tangible thing and a lesson that employers don't always understand is that you can show appreciation for your people in hundreds of ways that doesn't include spending big money. By doing fun low cost things to keep spirits up all year round no matter what the economy is like will motivate your staff to, like Mike says "to take care of your customers".

I could go on and on and get very preachy with this but I feel this is an important message to get out there. Yes the economy is going in the wrong directions...Yes the next year may not be like a Beach Boys song but the facts are that new business is going to be everywhere because people will be looking for new options and new vendors so no matter what you do or what industry you are in there are going to be little pots of gold lying around and if you have a motivated staff you may just find them.

...and if this hasn't motivated you to re-examine your company culture/general staff happiness maybe this will help to get you amped to do great things.

I am getting tired of entertaining ladies in my hotel when I travel

Regular readers of this little blog will know that I travel a whole bunch and occasionally I am away from home for days at a time. Friends of mine think this is pretty glamorous and while it is very cool and fun to stay in hotels and stuff (yes it is true...I have the best job in the world) it can sometimes be a solitary thing that doesn't always create inspiring ideas.

This is why I recently made a decision to do things a little differently from now on while I travel...you see I am one of these responsible business travelers that books a slew of meetings and tries to maximize every minute of my trip...right up to sleep time.

Makes sense right?

Well ya but what was happening was I would come home and people would say stuff like "Did you see this...or that?" and my answer was always no because I was too busy running from appointment to appointment or sitting in my hotel answering my email.

Then it came to me...why am I spending so much time in my hotel room calling housekeeping every hour for pillows and stuff?

(Answer is cause I crave female conversation but that is a post for another day)

...then I had another realization....I can answer my email from anywhere and have decided to do just that. Last week when I was in NYC I had plans fall through on me so I used the time to take a trip up to Harlem to watch Basketball in the world famous Rucker Park and actually wrote the idea notes for this blog post there...and answered a few hundred email in a super cool setting...and since I was clacking away on my laptop I am pretty sure people thought I was an NBA scout because people kept offering me water and asking if I saw anything I liked!

The following day I had a meeting in Brooklyn and instead of running back to my hotel like I normally would've I asked some folks if they knew where the movie Do The Right Thing was filmed so I could sit on that street and work there but no one knew so I simply parked myself in front of a corner store and started working and just pretended I was Robin Harris.

I guess what I am saying is nothing interesting happens in your hotel room...unless you get one of those open minded housekeeping staff members...so why stay in your hotel?

Get out and see stuff...meet people...create interesting stories and opportunities.

Looking back I think I was more productive because I wasn't sitting in a cab or on a train to get to somewhere to sit and do my work...I just sat somewhere interesting and did it!

(photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/ cause I forgot to take a picture)

Would being a Social Media consultant make you happy?

I think a lot about happiness...and for the most part I am a pretty happy guy, sure there are small things I would like to be different but generally I am in a good place.

I started thinking about this more today because of two things:

1- My friend Anjelika Jinx from the podcast Naive London Girl
was asking me to rate my level of happiness. I gave myself a pretty high rating based on what I explained above.

and

2- Because I travel a lot and get to meet a lot of great and interesting folks and I am always surprised at how many people really don't enjoy their jobs or even what they do for a living, I see these as a separate thing because you can love what you do and just not like where you are doing it. Whenever I am told this I ask "What job would make you happy?" and the answer I get more than anything is "Social Media Consultant"

Well today is your lucky day because I am going to give you the secret to getting started!

Disclaimer: To actually pull this off you are going to need to understand all about Social Media and how to use it all. I am going by the assumption that you already know all this stuff and just need a push to get work.....and like all my advice on this blog it is probably bad advice :)

Did you just hear that?

That was the sound of big companies all over the world calling their advertising agencies saying the words that give Social Media Consultants goosebumps...you know, "What is Twitter?" or "We need to get on this Facebook thing"

Yes these calls are happening and while some agencies understand all this stuff and do it very well, there are a bunch that don't...but they will soon. after picking the brain (or getting taught) by someone who understands the interwebs (both of them) backward and forward...and there is no reason why this person can't be you!

If I was going to venture out as a SMC tomorrow I would call every respectable agency I could find and offer to come in and do a presentation on the tools available in the social media playground that they could be using to help with their clients.

*This is important* I would charge a fee for this talk (doesn't have to be a lot) because you want to set yourself up as an expert from day one and experts get paid for stuff...and if you devalue yourself from the start you will never get top dollar when you start to work on projects.

Be prepared for a lot of rejection because what you are selling is still misunderstood to a certain extent but if you do get a chance to present you have to treat it like any other job interview and knock their socks off...and this part is super important...if it was me (again probably bad advice) I would finish my presentation with the words "Thanks for sitting through my presentation, I am happy to work with you guys on a one to one basis and my rates are $200 an hour" and then I would walk out.

I would do this because in my opinion there is an amazing window of opportunity RIGHT NOW to make a bunch of money in Social Media Consulting but it is getting smaller and smaller, and the more time you wait will harm your chances on benefiting because either someone else will grab your potential clients or these companies will figure it out themselves because they realized they could just promote the kid in the mailroom to become VP of Social Media.

Did any of that make sense?

I guess the only final thought I have on this is that if you are fortunate to get a job with one of these big agencies you should insist on contract work because this will allow you to work with several people at the same time and use the fact that you are working with COMPANY X to land you some work with smaller companies.

Also go into anything with the understanding that you are a teacher and like all students, they graduate! So you better keep learning as well because if you cant keep bringing new ideas and tools to the table your clients may end up a better "know it all" then you are!

Is there anything you would add to this?

How do you use Twitter - staring Saul Colt

I talk a whole bunch about my love for Twitter and I truly do love them (I even have a blog post cooking about how to transform the way people think of twitter without changing a single thing) so I was pretty jazzed when I found out that I made it into their promo video.

Check it out!


How Do You Use Twitter? from biz stone on Vimeo.

Does anyone want my job at FreshBooks?

If you are a regular reader you will know that I have without question the coolest job in the world.

I love my job and am happier than I have been for a while.......so why am I offering it to someone?

Well I am not really offering you MY job but am looking to add some people to our FreshBooks team...so if you guys know anyone in the Toronto area looking for the best job they have ever had tell them to check out careers.freshbooks.com

....especially anyone with some experience as a community manager!

Does Chris Brogan realize how influential he is?

I am a big fan of Chris Brogan's and really enjoyed his recent blog post titled "Be Sexier in Person" where Chris talked about networking and how to make the most of face to face encounters at a conference etc.

I actually read this post from my phone this morning while I was waiting for a conference to start and one of the pieces of advice was instead of saying "What do you do?” he suggests saying “what are you working on that’s fun?" because he feels it is more interesting.

Since I was at a conference anyway I figured I would give it a try and when I went to introduce myself to the first person of the day he surprised me by saying "SO, What are you working on that’s fun?"

Sound Familiar?

I considered asking if he was a Brogan fan but instead just answered his question.

This moment made me realize that stuff I write here does have an impact on people....and I also realized that Chris Brogan is a popular popular man!

Video evidence of of me at work!

I have another post or two to write about my last trip to New York but I came across something cool and thought I would post it first.

My mom still doesn't understand what I do for a living so I was pretty jazzed when I found this video of me actually at work doing my thing.....well sorta.



..thanks to Rahaf Harfoush for including me in her video!

I beleive the children are our future, treat them well and let them lead the way...

I travel a lot for my job as Head of Magic at FreshBooks and every time I do travel it seems that something interesting happens...so much so that last week when I was in New York I took pictures of every event and meeting I attended so I could write a long blog post explaining exactly what I do on these trips......but then I realized that I would be giving away the "keys to the store" and decided to just share a few things.

*Oh and this post has some dirty words in it so if you are the shy sensitive type I would suggest you click here and not read any further*

One of the first things I did on this trip after dropping my stuff at the hotel was take a walk. I had an hour to kill before my first appointment and decided to look for something for lunch.

Along my journey I stumbled across a gallery that was having a portfolio review for a local design school and being the curious type, and noticing that there were sandwiches (and they were delicious...especially the chicken with fancy mayo) inside I went in and chatted up a bunch of sexy art school graduates (there might have been some guys in the room but I didn't notice) and reviewed some portfolios.

Everything I saw was incredible and made me want to do something more creative in my day job. So many ideas came to me from this visit and (for me at least) I found it fascinating to see how peoples work matched their personalities.

One of my favorite examples of work in all the portfolios I viewed was from a very smart and interesting designer named DreaZ (Drea Zlanabitnig). The piece I liked the most was a font she created called PorkChop. Now you are probably saying to yourself "Self...what could be so interesting about a font?" and if you asked yourself that you would be correct. There isn't much interesting about most fonts but in this case it wasn't the font so much as what she did to showcase her creation.

You see she had four very plain newsprint posters made using her font with a very bold statement on them. "SHIT" "FUCK" "COCK" and "CUNT" followed my the origin of the word. Then she went and plastered these posters around town for all to see (and I mean, really see) her font.

You may or not not agree with the message of the posters but the concept and idea are brilliant!

Now I could easily go into a long diatribe about how inspiration can hit you in the strangest places or I could tell you all about the ideas I got from this inspiration but instead I want to just show you some pictures of the posters in action and let you see what others are up to and remind you that the goal of a message isn't always what you think it is!




...and if you were wondering, YES I am the proud owner of two of these posters!

The videos of my Third Tuesday presentation are now in YouTube

There are five excerpts up on YouTube from a presentation I did back in February where I had the honour of speaking at Third Tuesday hosted by Joseph Thornley of Thornley Fallis. Pretty early in the presentation I think Mike and I could tell that this was going to be a special night because the crowd was incredible, the questions were really thoughtful and there was just a great vibe in the room.

The 5 videos have are over at the Pro PR blog and I am pretty jazzed about sharing it one of them here with you here!

Yes I know the videos are a bit hard to see but they are way clearer and more entertaining then a Paris Hilton sex tape so give the rest of the videos a try here and here.

...and if you want me to come speak at something you are hosting just ask...I will speak just about anywhere :)

One Degree Marketing Blog asks me 5 questions!

The very fine folks at the One Degree were kind enough to ask me a few questions about what makes me the (not yet recognized) 2008 Marketer of the Year.

It is a great interview with lots of incite into my very active brain...here is an excerpt (one of the 5 questions) and click here to read the whole thing.

One Degree: Did you learn anything from this experience?

Customers are always more than customers. They are people. Sure you can read that and think it's buzz speak or a cliché - but once you have shared a meal with someone and had a chat about stuff not revolving around work, you look at them differently and want to give them more then you already are. This isn’t something I just learned on this trip, but the trip reconfirmed my belief of this.

Real world relationships in a Web 2.0 world (and a superior product) are the absolute best way to build a happy and loyal community. The days of faceless companies with no outward facing personality no longer work with savvy people. With so much more of people’s communications happening through a keyboard, some people want to be a part of something and feel some love from the companies they deal with. The companies that can do this genuinely, and not in a forced fashion, will have customers and fans.

Oh and while you're over reading the interview...feel free to leave nice comments because my Mom will be reading it :)

I am heading south tomorrow....

I am heading south tomorrow to New York City. I am booked solid with meetings and activities so I am not sure if I will have time to blog but if I do find some time, and if there is anything interesting to hare I may say what I got to say exclusively through comic strips powered by the fine folks at Bitstrips.

Here is my first one and like I said...there may be many many more!



...and yes Naive London Girl is a guilty pleasure of mine :)

DownloadSquad.com interviewed me!

I have been a fan of DownloadSquad.com for a while so when Grant and Christina asked me if they could interview me at SXSW I was pretty jazzed.

Here is what came out from our time together!


SXSWi 2008: Freshbooks talks to Download Squad from Download Squad on Vimeo.

Something that poped into my head while attending the ICE08 Conference

In my opinion there are four reasons people go to conferences.

1-To learn things
2-To catch up with old friends
3-To meet new ones and network like crazy
4-To possibly make out with people from the same or opposite sex and then never see them again.

I fall in the 1-3 category but could probably be convinced on #4 :)

Anyway while attending ICE08 this past week I was struck with an idea on how to make people like me who are interested in networking like crazy have an easier time with it.....and before I get into my idea I should say that this is in no way a complaint about ICE08. I thought this conference was incredible and Michelle Perras (and others) did a fantastic job organizing and running this event. My idea is more a general one in response to all conferences etc.

So as someone who tries to speak to everyone attending the conference (and I am sure I am not the only one) I have always been surprised by Conference/Trade Show badges. Traditionally they have the persons name large and the company name small. Now I like to know who I am talking to so I can offer up a relevant story whenever possible but to read the company name on these badges you need to stare at the persons chest for far too long.....and if it a lady you are speaking to....well you can imagine the impression you leave when you are staring too long.

I would love to see badges have the first name of the person you are talking to in a HUGE font with the last name small and then the company name HUGE and the title small. Heck I would even go further and say badges should be 3x the size they currently are.

Yes this idea is really just to make my job easier and possibly allow me to achieve the designation of MASTER NETWORKER but I can see it being helpful to others as well!

Let me know what you think.

-saul

10 ways we became an un-official sponsor of SXSW 2008

Please Note* I am re-posting this from the FreshBooks blog as it was originally written for over there but since I wrote it and am proud of it I figured my ever growing and loyal readership may find it interesting as well!

Going to conferences are a fun way to learn things and make friends, but they are still very much work... and when you are in marketing that means leaving people with a positive impression so they will remember you well after the event.

Normally, we would just smile and be friendly; however, there were 7500 people at SXSW Interactive! That's a lot of hands to shake. So, we had a different plan of attack for SXSW Interactive. We opted to do some crazy stuff in order to get some positive attention. After all, SXSW is kind of like Burning Man, but with pants.

Please note, we thought it was so cool that others liked what we did enough to post photos on Flickr, all the photos come from other people's Flickr accounts.

The ten fingers of FreshBooks

1. FreshBooks RoadBurn

We didn't just fly down to Austin like some half-weights. Mike, Sunir, our film producer Eamonn O'Connor, and I rolled into Austin in style all the way from from Future of Web Apps (FOWA) in Miami in our FreshBooks RV, at the tail end of our epic RoadBurn road trip to meet and eat with customers.

2. Schwag Bags



Every person attending the conference receives one of the famous SXSWi "Big Bags" just chock full of magazines, postcards, fortune cookies, stickers, etc. We dropped a postcard in the bag to tell everyone that Ben and Mike were speaking on panels and gave them the wheres and the whens.

3. Panels

We spoke on not one but two big panels during the festival. Ben teamed up with some folks from Pownce, Defensio, Dabble DB, and some little company called Facebook to present on the topic of Developer-Friendly API's and Mike (with me as a last minute addition) spoke about Stories of Failure: Surviving Common Start Up Mistakes. Both panels were very well received and was a great final touch for a lot of people.

4. Street Team



A large number of lucky people were welcomed to the convention center by the FreshBooks Street Team. All week long doors were held open for people coming in with the line "This door was held open by your friends at FreshBooks" and other fun good deeds were performed by the street team. The street team then handed them a phony invoice asking them to pay $1 or to just check out FreshBooks.com, just to prove that no good deed goes unbilled.

5. FreshForce Ones



We had custom Nike Air Force Ones made that we are calling the FreshForce Ones. These shoes are not only in the FreshBooks colors, but they also have FreshBooks written on the heal and the FreshBooks leaf on the bottom of the laces.

6. Hangover Kits



This is one of the things I am most proud of since it is a fun cool item that is so targeted to the spirit of SXSWi. Like ninjas we silently hung a hangover kit on every hotel room door in a few of the "official" hotels associated with SXSWi. This was the only way to get one... unless you bumped into Sunir or myself at one of the parties we attended on the last few nights. Inside these kits were common hangover relief stuff such as Advil, Blistex, Life Savers, Jolt Caffeine Gum, Band Aids, and antacid.

7. Canadian Pancake Breakfast



Growing up I was always told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We teamed up with Microsoft Canada, Praized, Uni, and the Canadian Consulate Generals in Dallas and Los Angeles to host a pretty amazing pancake breakfast. We had the RV on hand and pancakes for a few hundred. People left full and fulfilled!

8. The FreshBooks RoadBurn RV



The RoadBurn RV was pretty important during that trip but also had an important roll once we reached our destination. For one the RV was an incredible rolling billboard but also acted as a cool way for us to shuttle some of the cool kids from one party to another.

9. Customer dinners



One of the main goals of our RoadBurn trip was to meet as many customers as possible. This goal didn't end once we got to Austin so we hosted two amazingly fun customer dinners (one big one with 30+ at our table and one smaller one) where we got to chat, eat and drink all in the name of invoicing!

10. Parties

There are so many parties going on at the same time during SXSWi that there is no way to say what are the best ones, so you try to go to all of them. Sunir and I attended as many as 5 parties a night. Going to all these parties may sound like a lot of fun, but you have to remember it was still work. Incredibly fun work that involved trying to talk with every person in the room and getting them to know all about FreshBooks but it was still work :)

11. Interweb Idols

I never did learn how to count. We have a new supersekret project called Interweb Idols we started working on at FOWA and SXSW.

Next year

If you want to borrow any of these ideas for yourself, feel free since we are already dreaming up new ideas for next year. After this post, we are certainly going to have to outdo ourselves at SXSW2009. We are thinking ice house!

What I've Learned : SXSW Interactive 2008 Edition

I have been trying to figure out the best way to report on my time at the SXSW Interactive Festival and not coming up with a format I like. I am having this problem because so much of what I saw and experienced could (out of context) be taken the wrong way.

So I have decided to "borrow" the Esquire Magazine "What I've Learned" format and fill you in on all I can remember.

So here goes!

Festival Goodie Bags are useful since it introduced me to two amazing magazines : Create and Paste

Meeting old and new friends is a blast. Thanks to Rohit Bhargava, C.C. Chapman, Chris Brogan, Steve Hall, Candice Faktor, David Crow, Rannie Turingan, Maggie Fox, Dave Delaney, Gary Vanderchuk, Mike Miner, Marjorie Kase, Christina Warren, Michelle Riggen-Ransom, Grant Robertson, Caroline McCarthy, Baratunde Thurston and about 100 others!

Even thought I was at the Interactive Festival and not the Music Festival I still was introduced to some cool new music....like Nouvelle Vague, Lightspeed Champion.

...and finally as a first year attendee of sxsw here are some other random stuff I learned.

-Ben Vinegar (pictured with me) is a smart funny guy (I knew that already but I figured I should explain the picture)
-You can learn as much in the hallways as in the panels.
-You better hit as many parties as you can because they are fun...and the best place to meet folks.
-By the last day lots of people knew about FreshBooks....hopefully I had a hand in that.
-Say what you want about booze....but it makes some people fun.
-The Gingerman Pub in Austin has local made (non alcoholic) Root Beer on Tap like real beer so you can look cool and keep your wits about you at the same time!
-SXSWi is probably the only place you can bring a laptop to a party/bar and not look out of place.
-Handing out real one dollar bills as a street promotion is uncool.
-Handing out promo condoms in the mens room is creepy and can be misinterpreted.
-Girls like me!
-They really like me!
...and finally. Most of the really cool stories that come out of sxsw can't be repeated!

I had an absolute blast at SXSW and am already putting pen to paper coming up with ideas on how to make a splash next year.

Hope to see you there!

Couple of things to report while I work my way through SXSW

Hey Y'all (said with a perfect Texan accent...cause I am in Texas)

I don't mean to get all Alanis on you but I do see the irony in the fact that I am at the SXSW interactive festival, spending time with the best of the best of the blogger community and I haven't found any real time to blog. It could be that I am working like crazy making sure everyone in the city knows who I am and what I do or it could be that I am working like crazy making sure everyone in the city knows who I am and what I do.

Either one is good.

Anyway I wanted to send off a quick report on what I have been up to as well as let you know where I will be in a few weeks.

So to start......As I hope you are aware I/we have been producing a series of videos of our trip to SXSW and the "TEXAS" installment is up for your viewing pleasure over at the ROADBURN site (or just below).



....and to complete the irony of this post I am now going to blog about another conference (blogger social) while I sit at SXSWi.

I will be in New York on April 4th to 6th to attend the (first?) Blogger Social. I am pretty excited to bee hanging out and spreading my love with some of the real stars of the blogger community.

As of today the following folks are registered to attend:

Susan Bird, Tim Brunelle, Katie Chatfield, Matt Dickman, Luc Debaisieux, Gianandrea Facchini, Mark Goren, Gavin Heaton, Sean Howard, CK, Valeria Maltoni, Drew McLellan, Doug Meacham, Marilyn Pratt, Steve Roesler, Greg Verdino, CB Whittemore, Steve Woodruff, Paul McEnany, Ann Handley, David Reich, Tangerine, Toad Kristin, Gorski Mack Collier, David Armano, Ryan Barrett, Lori Magno, Tim McHale, Gene DeWitt, Mario Vellandi, Arun Rajagopal, Joseph Jaffe, Rohit Bhargava, Anna Farmery, Marianne Richmond, Thomas Clifford, Lewis Green, Geoff Livingston, Kris Hoet, Connie Reece, CeCe Lee Toby Bloomberg Seni Thomas Darryl Ohrt Joe Kutchera Paul Dunay Marshall Sponder Chris Kieff Tara Anderson Jason Falls Paul Soldera Roberta Rosenberg Saul Colt Todd Andrlik Nathan Snell Ryan Karpeles Mike Sansone Jennifer Laycock Neil Vineberg Cam Beck Mike Arauz Matthew Bailey Heather Gorringe John Rosen Cathleen Rittereiser Tamar Weinberg Rita Perea Linda Sherman Matthew McDonald Kaitlyn Wilkins Terry Starbucker, Jennifer Berk Jane Quigley John Wall Scott Monty Kevin Horne Virginia Miracle Amanda Gravel Susan Reynolds David Polinchock Shashi Bellamkonda David Berkowitz Vahe Habeshian.

...and here is what they all look like!

Miami? I thought I was going to Denny's for a Moons Over My Hammy®

Dear Diary,

Miami is fun.

Wish you were here!



Follow the adventures of my trip over at the official ROADBURN site!

-saul

I have a secret speaking thingie Tuesday the 26th!

The sometimes appropriately titled Third Tuesday is hosting another event (tomorrow or today depending on when you read this) and this time it features ME as a co presenter.

The little talk is called "The Wisdom of Mike McDerment" and Mike is going to....well share his wisdom.

So where do I come in?

Well since Mike was wise enough to hire me I am also going to add my .02 and share my ever expanding knowledge with the crowd in my own unique way.

Basically it was too late to add my name to the marquee but I promise I will be speaking and sharing not only "stuff I know" but also hugs and kisses.

Hope to see you there!