Random Thoughts from my 360Flex Experience

I am back home from the 360Flex Atlanta conference. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts about the conference. I'm not going to focus on the session reviews, just overall thoughts.

• A lot more people listen to The Flex Show now than they did at 360Flex Seattle. As such, my 'prominence' in the community has risen up a notch. I want to thank everyone for listening.
• At 360Flex, speakers are just "attendees with a little more responsibility." This is just one of those things that makes smaller conferences more special. You get to meet speakers (including me) hanging out with other presentations. Even as a speaker, it's nice when I'm able to talk to other speakers (And attendees, I like talking to attendees too).
• I got four new T-shirt, including Degrafa, Merapi, AIR , and a Google YouTube shirt. Degrafa and Merapi were partially sponsored by 360Flex as part of their "give back to the community" segment.
• I sat in on Doug and Juan's open forum on Building Your Own Brand + Getting Hired. Doug is one of the brightest / most motivated coders I know, however we disagree on many things regarding the "business" side of life. As a business owner for nine years, I'm often slightly amused by his take on that side of things. I think I was able to offer a counter point to much of what he said. One point we did agree upon was that when you should have a purpose when trying to build a brand (Either for a company or your own name). Doug's purpose in blogging was to find a job. Mine is just an outlet for writing and an avenue to learn new things. A few people came up to me after that session to ask about business related stuff.
• AIR 1 and Flex 3 were released. This was announced at the 360Flex day 1 keynote. I thought this was a great vindication of what 360Conferences was doing. Unfortunately all the press releases I read on the subject spoke about how these product announcements were done at Engage, which is a bit of a bummer.
• Often when I think of high level executives at companies, I think of them as unapproachable people. However, every time I'm at an event like this with the folks from Universal Mind it always seems like I'm bumping into a high level executive mingling with the "common folk". They always know my name (or at least are quick enough to read it off the badge), re-introduce themselves (because I'm bad with names and faces) and ask how things are going. I assume they treat clients with the same sort of respect, and that is a huge portion of their success.
• As per the community keynote, 360Flex Atlanta was profitable! Although they did not announce another date in the USA, I assume we will see another one.
• On the way home, I was walking through the Atlanta Airport. I see Ben (either Clinkinbeard or Stucki I forget which is which ) Then I stop at the gate, and am studying my ticket to verify the gate. This girl starts making her way towards me singing The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia. At first I didn't realize she was attempting to communicate with me. I gave her a weird look and stepped away. Then I paused again to review the boarding pass. She followed me. Now, I'm a little freaked, as this was the second time she was invading my personal space. I asked her to leave me alone, and went looking for Ben thinking there was safety in numbers. ( Couldn't find Ben, so he must have moved or I went blind). I told her that I just wanted to be left alone. She asked if I scared her, I said no but she was a little creepy (or Freaky?). Then I stomped off to a group of seats and sat myself down. She didn't follow me this third time. I checked all my pockets and bag (wallet, cell phone, keys, computer, etc..) because she was that close. In retrospect, I wish I asked if she knew me

And that's it! Now I have to devote some time to editing down the Day 3 Flex Show interviews. ;)