I’ve been lucky to meet many members of this group, to include most of the founders, well before this event. What started as a Tweetup has grown into a community of like-minded people that want to help each other raise the bar – to get better at reaching, serving, and satisfying their customers. And to teach each other how to get better – which is the real key. Vibrant communities are built when people care more about US then they do about “me”.

This is a pure grass-roots organization, with no dues, no real rules, but a lot of shared excitement, and curiosity, and a desire to both learn, and to teach.

I was lucky enough to speak at BMPR two months ago, and I had fun with it. I had the dorkiest slide deck ever because I’m not a fan of slides. I would rather “talk story”, as they say down under.

So for three years, almost, I have been talking about this company I work for, and how amazing it is. And I know some people were probably getting tired of it, because it just sounded like me beating a corporate drum. But last Thursday a lot of my friends got to come and see why I love talking about who I work for.

It is not a perfect place, but it is most often a magical place. Being able to share that with 100+ of my friends, and the friends of my friends was really cool. I was pretty proud to have them see what we did with an old shopping mall – how we turned it into a very comfortable home for Fanatical Support to live – and grow.

Managing over 100 guests at a time, to include a tour through offices with a thousand or more people actually doing their day jobs isn’t something many companies would welcome. My bosses supported the idea from the first email I sent that asked, “What if…?”.

They were so in sync with me on my desire to just show off a little bit of what we are building – we are not done by any means – both our mall (The Castle) and our company are still expanding very quickly. They had no clue who BMPR was – they just knew it was important to me. Important enough that a member of the senior leadership team took some time to welcome people, and stayed around for most of the session.

I’ve been a Rackspace customer for a long time – and approaching being an employee for three years.  The things Rackspace has let me do – the ideas they have let me pursue; the chances they have let me take…  It really is a different kind of company.  Where the Chairman might call me at 12:30 am if that is the only time we can find to talk, or I might have a 1:1 dinner with the CEO.  Where a Social Media team is built off of engineers and not marketing.  Where one over-riding goal of “Be Helpful” permeates everything we try to do.

Where a great idea can get funded if you are passionate enough to pursue it.

That doesn’t happen in a lot of companies our size.  It is a little magic. And I’m glad I can invite in guests that can get a bit of a sense of that magic.

Everything starts with community.  From the way we are building our company to why BMPR matters.

If you want to make your life more full – get involved with your community.  There are some amazing people out there wiling to both learn and teach you.  Find them.  They are looking for you too.

We all need each other.

Thanks so much to my friends in BMPR for letting me show you a bit of my world – and for sharing so much of yours with the rest of us.

Note – edited to link to my dorky slide set, per request.

I have NEVER taken a dime from SeaWorld (and they have never offered me a dime!), or anyone else, for any post on this blog.  My thoughts are my thoughts.  Sure – if SeaWorld shows me something cool, I will probably write about it.  This is NOT any different than what Robert Scoble does, what Techcrunch does, or what any other news blog does.

Why is this coming up?

A recent article in Forbes mentions SeaWorld in conjunction with a pretty negative post about Izea, AKA PayPerPost.

A long-time reader saw that article – and asked me, rather bluntly, if I had taken blogola.

I absolutely have NOT.  I have sold a few ads over the years (maybe totaling $500) based on content I had already written and published, but I have NEVER written a post in trade for anything.  Not even a free beer.  I write what I want to write – nothing more, and nothing less.  NONE of those posts that paid me ad revenue were in any way related to SeaWorld.

It is also true that I *did* sign up for PayPerPost, back in the day.  Back when they were being raked over the coals for being unethical.  I didn’t want to take the word of someone else – I wanted to see how it “worked”.  So yes, I signed up on PayPerPost.  I have NEVER received a dime from them, or submitted ANY content to them.

I find it distressing that SeaWorld is even named in the same post with PayPerPost/Izea/Ted Murphy.  I am also distressed that this has caused my own motives/ethics to be questioned.  I don’t know what is going on in Orlando, Florida, but I am very confident in the SeaWorld San Antonio team, and how they handled the invitations for me to attend events.  They never asked for ANYTHING in return from me.  And I have been to large events, like launching a new roller coaster, to small events, that were more about their vision for the future, etc.  I might have eaten a free taco, but those of you that know me know that I am not an eater – so free food cannot bribe me.

SeaWorld San Antonio is my friend, and I have made many friends there.  My daughter has a season pass that was PAID for (by my ex).

So no.  There was absolutely zero quid pro quo in any of my posts about SeaWorld San Antonio.  Nothing more than friendships.  Like many of my posts, I do talk about cool things friends are doing/have done.

I don’t know the details of this, beyond the article I reference above.

I just know MY SeaWorld here in San Antonio.  And the PR team I have dealt with.  And they have treated me with nothing but respect.  Had they offered to pay me to post, I would have been offended, and they would have lost a customer, and an advocate.  And probably a friend.

Instead they DID respect my morals as a blogger (and as a person) and offered me nothing in exchange for my attendance other than the ability to attend.  To me, that was payment enough.  Friends launched something – and I wanted to be among the first to play with it.  In this case, it was an idea, or a roller coaster.

In most cases, it is a website.

But to me, the same criteria applies – I have to be interested in it, and I need an emotional investment in it.  In the case of SeaWorld San Antonio it was a combination of both.  Loved the new coaster I got to ride, and am emotionally attached to some of the staff.  They are friends.

And friends don’t need to pay me for a post.  Friends know me well enough not to offend me by offering.  Friends know I will write about them when they do something that interests me.

Rob

It was fun!

Rob

Now I do Cloud Computing – it is very hard to point at something and have my kids understand exactly what I build. I could not even bring them into our data center and point at a machine that one of my domains runs at. There is no “machine”. There are thousands of machines. (And even as the Director of Software Development I don;t have the credentials to get into our datacenters – I don’t need to be there).

What I build is hard to point at – much more difficult than a Wireless enabled laptop, or a WiFi Router.

But I am building something even larger than WiFi. Imagine that – larger than WiFi! Think of it – where were you last in a decent sized city and you couldn’t find free WiFi somewhere?

It is everywhere, And I am helping to build something even bigger, but different.

And struggling with how I explain it to people. Even my kids.

We went through this with Wireless – where people just didn’t get it – until they used it. Cloud computing is kinda like that. You don’t know that you want it (yet). In a year you will be pissed when you can’t get it.

I have just accepted a position as Director of Software Development for Mosso.

Mosso is based in San Antonio, and is part of Rackspace.

So, why did I choose Mosso?  From the web site:

We started Mosso because we knew there were web developers who wanted a reliable platform for their applications and email–without being the ones responsible for all the technology.

Basically, Mosso does, on a much larger scale, what I have been doing as a consultant for the last few years – stripping as much of the technology details as possible out of the lives of people that have an idea and/or dream – they want to build the idea, not manage the server, or the databases.  They want to be able to focus on building what they envision.  I’ve helped people focus on that – Mosso lets thousands of people do the same.

That’s what Mosso does.  And more.  And in very cool ways.

Mosso also passed all of my test points:

• I need to build teams.
• I need to work with smart people.
• I need a voice.
• I need responsibility, accountability, AND authority.
• I need the security of a larger company with the atmosphere of a startup.
• I needed a company that is nimble – it can quickly adjust to change, and new ideas.
• My work must have value to me, and to others.
• The impact has to have a large footprint.  I like building big!

So, how did Mosso do on this list?  Extremely well.  I will not be building one team – but several teams.  I have met some of the smartest people – all in one company in downtown San Antonio.

My position is a senior one – I will eventually have a large team – and many of them I will need to hire.  That is important work that is important to the company, and to my new coworkers.  I’ll be allowed to run my teams and do my job – I’ll be helping grow/invent/implement some very cool technology.

The work environment is amazing – we have real humans at Mosso 24/7.  We have developers on call 24/7.  We work 24/7 (so you don’t have to!).  Developers build their own schedules for covering “on call” – they don’t need a “manager” – they are managing quite well right now   So I will focus on improving our processes and hiring more talented people (call me if you are interested – 210-845-4440).

New employees get their choice of computers.  You want a Windows desktop? – no problem.  One monitor, or two?  You want a 17” MacBook Pro (I Do!) – that’s cool as well.  One monitor, or two?  It’s really up to you.  Since we are building computing for the cloud, the systems we personally choose don’t really matter (except for where you feel most productive!).

Like any startup, you have a lot to do – your job description might as well read, “Succeed”.  I like that.  But we’re also backed by Rackspace – a very strong company (and a very cool company to work at in their own right – they’ve won a lot of awards for being a cool place to work).

I first met the Mosso crew when I invited Robert Scoble to come to San Antonio – I was just introduced to a couple of them – I didn’t get a chance to talk to them.  But a few weeks later I looked into what they were doing.  I became a customer.  I was (and am even more so now) impressed.  Those blog posts started a conversation that eventually led to here.  It was not planned.

But I am very pleased to be in an exciting position at Mosso – and am very happy to be part of the Rackspace family.  I am a Racker, and already proud of it

I won’t be able to talk much about what I am doing for a while.  But once I can, I’ll be sure to share my experience with you.

But as I learn more about Mosso, and what my teams look like – I’ll share that with you. 

Because I wouldn’t go to work for a company that didn’t excite me   And challenge me.

This one does.

It has been an amazing four years for me – I have been able to spend time with my kids as required – but mostly I have been able to spend an inordinate amount of time learning.  Ten years ago I learned by reading books – today I learn more by surfing the Internet – it is still reading, but it is so much faster, and so much more available (and “find-able!”.

One of the things my time in consulting has taught me is that I miss people.  I miss the challenge of building teams – not just hiring people, but building functional groups that work well together to build more than any single persons could have done.

So, taking stock of my life, as I am often wanton to do, I asked myself, “What is next”?  In a year I will have two kids in college, and perhaps neither of them left at home.

It was time for me to answer the question, “What does Rob want?”.

So I looked back in my life experiences and tried to zero in on what made me the most happy – what did I love to do so much that I could do it for the rest of my life?  Raising children certainly tops my list – but I can’t raise them forever – in fact, I am already being outsourced in that position – by my children themselves.

Raising children is like building good teams – the end goal is that eventually they won’t need depend on you anymore.

I decided I needed to go back to work with people – preferably young, energetic people, and certainly people smarter than I am.  I have always been lucky in surrounding myself with people smarter than I am (and please – PAUL! – no comments that this should be easy – it isn’t).

This realization came over a several month period – I didn’t wake up one day having come to this “epiphany”.

I missed building teams.  I need to work with smart people.  I MUST work for a company that understands that I am a unique person – I am opinionated, passionate, determined, outspoken, opinionated, and outspoken.  And I am sorry if I repeated myself.  And I am sorry if I repeated myself.

I need a company that doesn’t exist outside of startups – I needed security, because I will have two kids in college.  It must be nimble.  It must be willing to listen, and learn – even as it teaches.  But I also needed the excitement that keeps me engaged.  I need to constantly invent.  I need to work with smart people that will make me smarter.  I needed to be someplace that allows me to make a difference every day.  I needed to build something that affects a lot of people, because after helping build WiFi – it takes a big project to be a “big deal”.

And most of all – I need to be able to help.  My work must have value – to me, and to the people I work with.  And to the customers – who I never shy away from or refuse a conversation with.

In the next day or two I hope to share with you the company that is all of that, and more.  How much more is something I expect to find out soon – and something I hope to grow over time.

But don’t worry – I won’t change my blogging style/habits.  I wouldn’t work for a company that thought they could control my freedom of expression outside the office.

The list of companies I wouldn’t work for is rather large.  So I’ll save you that and instead share with you in the next couple days who I would work for – and I will tell you exactly why I made that choice.

It is amazing how expensive some areas are.  Considering that San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the country (larger than Dallas, or San Diego, for example), our cost of living has really remained manageable.

I’m also looking specifically into housing costs – comparing my current home to equivalent homes in each of the cities below.  That is taking a bit longer, but I hope to turn it into a future post.

If you are a tech geek, and want to make your money buy a bit more (or even a hell of a lot more!) you should consider San Antonio – we’ve got room for you (room you can afford!)

MySa.Com just put up a great mashup that shows where your local Farmers Market is in San Antonio.

I didn’t realize that there were a few that are quite close to my house, even if they are only open on the weekend.

Fresh from the farm Looking for fresh picked produce? It’s as close as your neighborhood farmers market. Click below and find where and when local markets are open.

Farmers Market | MySanAntonio.com

My daughters’ High School ranked  446th.  Not too shabby.  San Antonio has twelve of the top 1300 spots.  Not bad – but we can do a lot better!

Public schools are ranked according to a ratio devised by Jay Mathews: the number of Advanced Placement, Intl. Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2007 divided by the number of graduating seniors. All of the schools on the list have an index of at least 1.000; they are in the top 5 percent of public schools measured this way

America’s Top Public High Schools | Newsweek Best High Schools | Newsweek.com

One of my younger brothers (Eric, younger than me by two years) was in town tonight for a bowling tournament. Of course I asked him to stay with me, and I drove him and his two kids to the bowling alley (bowling centers, I think they prefer) dropped them off, and went to dinner at one of my friend’s house. 

I knew bowling would take longer than I cared to spend watching – I thought it would be excessively boring.  So I missed the first 90 minutes of it.  But I came back from my friends house in time to watch my brother play a few games, and actually win a bit of money.  I was just sitting with my niece and nephew and enjoying a cold beer and their conversation.

And it turned out to be anything but boring.

Eventually I felt the need for a smoke, so I went outside (yes, even bowling alleys are off limits to smokers now – even though 90% of the bowlers smoked).

So I am outside and I see a group of people (who happened to be mostly black)surrounding one very drunk woman and similarly drunk guy (both white) and asked someone what was going on.

It appears the drunk white dude had rammed his truck into the sober black guys brand new dealer-loaned Audi.  He hit it hard enough to move it 6 feet (the Audi was parked and unoccupied at the time).  And he tried to run.  And he almost ran over a half dozen people in the parking lot before he was pulled from the truck and detained.  His "girlfriend" was also removed from the truck.  She was too drunk to even stand.  Someone went to take the keys from the truck, and guess what?  There were no keys.  The ignition had been ripped out.  The truck was obviously (probably) stolen.

Now I didn’t see any of this – I came out right after they were pulled from the truck.  But I did come out right after they were pulled from the truck in time to see that they were treated quite well – they were held, asked to sit down, and then the calls to 911 started.  There were probably 15-20 people out front now – most of them black.  And they were detaining two white people.

So when the two drunk white people got up and got back into the truck, about 20 minutes later, nobody knew quite what to do – and by the time they figured it out, the drunk white people had driven off.  Nobody struck them, harmed them, or were even overly rude to them.  But the drunks were ready for a fight and the crowd wasn’t interested in one.  Certainly the police would be along any moment.

About this time I go back in and tell my brother and my niece and nephew what happened, and of course the kids (not so much kids anymore!) wanted to see.  So we went back outside.

This is now 45 minutes after the San Antonio Police received the first 911 call.  The young black man who had his Audi hit was back on the phone with the police, begging for them to dispatch someone.

Me, being me, yelled out to him, and into his cell phone, "Tell the cops there are white people here too – maybe they will show up".

Almost exactly one hour after the initial call a lone female officer arrived and started to get the Audi owners information.

During the near hour of no police response the drunken fool had driven back past the bowling alley twice!  We can only guess that the drunk white chick with him still had her car at the bowling alley, and that they were trying to recover it.  Or they were so drunk they just thought cruising past the ever-growing crowd was just cool.

But they had several things working against them.  By this time there were about 50 people in the parking lot – black, white, Asian, Indian.  And they were all mad.  Mad at the cops for taking an unforgivable amount of time to arrive – especially since it was made clear to them that a citizen arrest (for lack of a accurate legal description for it) had been made – against a drunk driver who hit another vehicle, tried to run, and in doing so almost ran over innocent people – including children.

Finally as the Audi owner was talking to the officer the drunk drove by a third time!

Everyone started pointing and yelling, and the officer took off in pursuit.  But she must have lost the guy because we didn’t see her or him for another ten minutes..  Until he drove back by for the fourth time!  And just to be clear – at this point the guy had done a lot more damage to his truck – it was apparent that he had hit something else (again and again!).  He saw the now probably 50 person crowd and started to take off down a side street.  He clipped some other vehicles/trees/whatever and spun out and headed back in the general direction of the bowling alley – he was about a half block away, but it was an open field and we all had an open view.

I had my niece and nephew with me (both older teens), but I still closed in on the truck as the female officer pulled up behind him, hit her lights and finally dragged the driver out of the truck and struggled with him – in the middle of Austin Highway – a very busy five lane highway.  She quickly subdued him (Mace, brute force, her will to win, and his drunkenness all worked against the idiot).

At this point I was across two lanes of traffic, but I noticed 3-4 of the other witnesses were rushing the truck – which was still moving,  I think we all expected the drunk woman to be in the truck.  She wasn’t.  But the truck was in gear and rolling down a very busy highway (and the truck was not in good shape – it had fenders rubbing on tires, etc)`- and I ran over and noticed that there was another occupant in the vehicle.  A very nervous looking dog.

A half dozen of us got the truck under control and pushed it off the main highway (I had the steering wheel and the poor dog was looking at me with such a confused look on her face)  – even as the female officer was cuffing the man and calling for assistance.  Amazing how quickly other cops showed up when an officer asked for help.

When a citizen called for police it took an hour – and caused the situation to escalate to a near riot.  There were at least 60-80 people on the street when the arrest was finally made – and many of them were quite angry – with cause, I might add.  The police took way to long to respond.  Their poor response time put a lot more people at risk – the other drivers that were facing this drunk on the road, the people trying to restrain the drunk, etc.  People were actually talking out loud about the fact that police were not responding to an urgent request from a black citizen.

Then, and now, a couple hours later, I cannot fault them for their perceptions – the reality is that the response time was pathetic.  For whatever reason.

But at the end of the evening, I saw an amazing group of dissimilar citizens band together to watch the drunk, keep track of when he went where, and finally point him out to the lone officer who took the man down.

And I helped stop the runaway truck, in the middle of busy traffic, and I helped save the poor dog with the idiot for an "owner".

And my niece and nephew saw it.

And somehow, I think they respect me a bit for not just standing back and watching – the situation was definitely not in control when I got involved – the cop was still wrestling with the drunk in the middle of the highway, and I was helping stop an unmanned, yet still moving, pickup truck.  Which was stolen, by the way.

I have no idea where the drunk girl was.  She could have been let out (or fallen out) anywhere.  At this point it was getting late, and we needed to head back to my house before anything else interesting happened.

And now I am going to sleep – wishing I could have taken the poor dog.  It deserved better.  But the cops called animal control.  I guess if you are a dog with a stupid ass drunk for an "owner" you still belong to the stupid-ass drunk.  Even if they go to jail.

And yes – this shit really happens to me.  And I have witnesses!

We’re pretty fortunate – a lot of our jobs are Military related, our housing values have  continued to rise while most of the rest of the nation is falling, and we are the host city to many large company headquarters (ATT, USAA, etc).

Nationally, home prices are falling, unemployment is on the rise and the economy is expected to grow slowly–or even contract–in the first half of the year.

But some cities are doing just fine.

Take Oklahoma City, Okla. With falling unemployment, one of the country’s strongest housing markets, and solid growth in agriculture, energy and manufacturing, it looks best positioned among the nation’s largest metropolitan areas to ride out the current crisis.

San Antonio is right behind. It also features solid employment figures and affordable home prices that continue to rise. Its industries are growing; it can’t hurt that the new AT&T (nyse: T – news – people ) was formed when San Antonio-based SBC Communications swallowed the old AT&T Corp. and BellSouth.

America’s Recession-Proof Cities – Forbes.com

Unlike my water company, I actually have a high regard for my local power company.

It is a city-owned utility, making it one of the least expensive power companies of major US cities.

It also produces 40% of it’s power emissions-free.

And now Texas is the largest supplier of wind energy in the US, and San Antonio is the leading supplier in the entire country.

I can’t wait until people are accustomed enough to wind-turbines that they’ll let me put one up in my back yard.

Not one quite this big!  But maybe something like this.

CPS Energy is the No. 1 ranked supplier of wind-generated electricity among all municipally owned utilities, according to figures released by the American Wind Energy Association. CPS Energy currently has the capacity of supplying 501 megawatts of wind power to its customers. Austin Energy earned the No. 2 spot nationally at 274 megawatts. MSR Power Agency of California ranked third with 200 megawatts. Seattle City Light ranked fourth at 175 megawatts and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District ranked fifth with 106 megawatts of power.

CPS Energy is America’s leading supplier of wind power – San Antonio Business Journal:

This used to be the largest mall in San Antonio, I think.  Robert Scoble of FastCompany.TV toured it (and I was lucky enough to go along) a couple weeks ago.  His videos should be up soon.  Some of the photos I took today might be in that video.

I went out and shot over 150 still pictures today (I walked all the way around this thing in motorcycle boots – 1.3 million square feet is huge).  Motorcycle boots because a) it was wet and drizzling a bit, b) I rode my motorcycle, and c) I knew it was an active construction site and I needed proper footwear).

Just the one "small" section behind the trees in this photo above is the old Montgomery Wards store. It is framed in yellow here:

This should give you some sense of the scale – at least if you have ever been in a Montgomery Wards in a major mall.  Huge footprint.

Rackspace expects to have 5,000 workers in this building in the next couple of years – and tens of thousands of servers.

But don’t worry about parking – there are a LOT of parking spots – almost the entire parking lot on the right of the photo is two story (the other parking is underground).

It took me almost an hour to walk all the way around this thing and get every part of it in pictures.

This sucker is giant.

I can’t wait until Rackspace grows into it!

It is drop-dead-easy to use.  And it can produce some pretty interesting results.  Like these pictures combined from the photos I took when FastComapny.TV was filming at Sea World, San Antonio.

Click to enlarge.

Here Shel is talking to Scoble, talking to himself, AND merged in with Fran from Sea World.  This merged five photos. I know it looks like four – trust me, it was five

This is a stitch up of a couple photos showing the lake at Sea World (and another coaster in the background)

You can get Windows Live Photo Gallery here.  It is free.

ATT is headquartered here, and Robert uses ATT – so I would hope the network was above par.  Plus we have a lot of large companies here and a huge Military presence – all are heavy consumers of high-speed wireless data.

Just another reason San Antonio is a great place to build a business.  The Scoble videos coming up over the next few weeks will give you many more reasons.

Here’s one of my favorite – The Flying Saucer (and yes, I know other cities have a Flying Saucer – but not as nice as mine!).  From last night – a Scoble Qik video – live streaming videos of a gaggle of geeks guzzling grog.  And yes, that’s me on the still frame below.  I am afraid to say.

And yes – this was March 12, 2008.  And yes, nobody has a jacket on, and there is no snow.  Just the way I like it!

I’ll post more about the entire experience later – but let me just say for now that we didn’t just have fun – we met some great tech people, I found a new developer for one of my projects, I found a new home for a bunch of overseas blogger’s that I have been hosting on my private server, I made a dozen new friends, and the real “event” hasn’t even started.  I haven’t named this event (which I hope becomes an annual one), but I am thinking of stealing a tagline from Rackspace and call it simply “Tech Town”.

You can hear more about Tech Town when Robert gets his videos of Rackspace online.

Today Scoble meets up with a half dozen local tech companies – all in one room, all with interesting stories.  I’ll let Robert tell the stories, through his videos, but I’ll give you my own perspective on the experience tomorrow.

They were all working – filming an episode for FastCompany.TV – I was just trying to stay out of the way.

Before the actual interviews started Robert broadcast live on QIK from his cell phone:

Below are some still shots. My second Sony DSC-F717 still doesn’t record video correctly – so I am going to have to buy a new digital camcorder. Ugh.

Click any picture for a larger view.

Here Robert and Rocky set up the shot. The two HD cameras are very nice – they even sync the audio from the remote microphone to each camera. Very cool.
	Kami and Shel (and two Sea World employees, Fran and Bob) have just finished the ride. They are all wearing ponchos because this particular roller coaster ends up crashing into a lake – and it was cold outside!
Shel and Robert, framing the shot, checking the sound.
	Shel interviews Kami.
Shel solo – just behind him is the landing zone for the coaster (boat). I saw some of the video Robert and Rocky shot – you’ll be able to get a very good feel for this ride once Shel posts this episode.
	Preparing to launch.
One last shot of Shel.

A few weeks ago I realized that Robert Scoble will be in Austin, TX for SXSWi. Wow – “Austin is close to San Antonio”, I thought.

Then I went to sleep.

The next day I woke up and thought, “Why not invite Robert to San Antonio”?

The worst thing that could happen is that he would say no.

He didn’t.

Robert is coming to San Antonio at my simple request to “come see what we are building”.

OK.  So Scoble is visiting – I found that I had some work to do – like lining up companies for Robert to meet with!

I’ve spent two weeks explaining to some local tech companies what I am planning, what Robert does (in some cases) and mostly, “Why I am doing this”.

Simply put, I am doing this because San Antonio does a horrible job (my opinion) of highlighting the tech that we invent here. From Wireless Networking, PC Networking, the Personal Computer, Personal Home Networks, and more – it was either invented here, or has deeps roots here.  But nobody seems to realize that.

So I want to fix that misperception.  More importantly, I want people to know what we are building today.

That’s all I want.  I am not making any money off of this whatsoever.  None of the companies I represent will be presenting to Robert.  My interests are pure.

But I still spent most of my day today working out details.  I’ve completed the company list (and if you are a local tech company that I have not talked to please feel free to contact me anyway.  We probably can’t get you into this session, but I plan on doing this again, and again.  With Scoble, if I can get him back again next year.  So call me.  Let’s talk).

So here’s my respect for conference organizers – what you do is like herding wet and feral cats. Everyone has their own agenda.  And that is fine. As long as they respect MY agenda – which is the end-goal -  highlighting San Antonio Tech to Robert Scoble – and through him, to the world

And I’m not even doing this alone – a local company has generously agreed to step up and handle most of the details. I’ll talk more about them, and the other companies Scoble will meet with in a future post – probably after the event.

I can’t imagine how much a conference organizer has to deal with – the different needs/concerns of each company, the demands for details before details are available, the “we will ifs” – an amazingly complex juggling act.

So Kudos to conference organizers everywhere.  You’ve earned my respect over the last couple of weeks!

And more on this as it develops.  But rest assured – Robert and Rocky WILL see some cool stuff, and they will enjoy great Texas hospitality!