I’ve been in Las Vegas the past few days, attending the PODi conference. Focused on print and marketing, the conference is an intimate gathering of a few hundred industry members.
I flew in Monday morning, and except for accidentally shaving (the second time this has happened on the road — the razor’s piece that keeps my 5 o’clock shadow trimmed fell off during the flight, and I neglected to make sure it was on the razor before diving in — oops), everything has been smooth.
Vegas from my hotel window
We’ve had some great speaking opportunities. On Monday, Joe and one of our Clients spoke at a 3-hour session about marketing automation and our Client’s real-life examples; it was well received. Yesterday, I participated on a panel centered on the evolution of marketing automation; with me were a few industry friends from XMPIE and Pageflex.
Throughout the show, I’ve had some amazing conversations, many of which are blog-worthy material to share in future posts.
For example, I had an interesting conversation with the CEO of a company who shared a model to understand a person’s “time horizon”, and how the concept can help you better lead and manage your team.
In a nutshell, the idea is simple: everyone is different in how they think, and one such area is the time range they tend to think in.
For example, at a construction site, the carpenter thinks about today’s work, whereas his supervisor is thinking about today’s work in the context of the entire job site and other sites s/he is managing.
The carpenter’s time horizon is in days or weeks; the supervisor’s is 1-3 months.
The theory argues that once you understand your own time horizon and those of the people on your team, it becomes simpler to arrange your people in a way that maximizes their ability.
Any ways, more on that later.
This past weekend I spent some time with Dave on both Saturday and Sunday. I’m eager to share more of his story and keep you involved with how this is unfolding. I’m in the midst of writing about our time together and will share that soon.
On that topic: it is interesting to see how many people at the show know about Dave and J. I see lots of pageviews for these posts (about Dave — about J), but it is difficult to discern who is reading. However, I’ve met many people who have been touched by the stories. It is encouraging.
I can’t wait to share that with my homeless friends.
Cheers!
