But, as last year’s event drew to a close I made the decision that I should be where the tech and interactive minds are as much as possible. Especially because I’m looked to as an expert in this field and I enjoy me some networking with the Twitterati. So, here’s the 3rd-person sharing of my steps, in a calendarized build-up, for this year’s event along with a quick (first-person) “what I expect to get out of SXSWi 2012. Enjoy.

March 2011 – Jeff wails loudly that he should be in Austin. He smiles because he saved $2487, but he still misses spending time with fun tech and social media folks. He also misses the barbecue and beer that is prevalent in Austin during SXSW.

Late March 2011 – Jeff reserves a room in downtown Austin for 21 days from March 2 through March 23, 2012. He doesn’t know what dates SXSW will fall on in the coming year, so he decides to take chance out of the equation.

April 2011 – Jeff calls his hotel – reserved for 21 days – and whittles down his stay to a mere seven nights. He still enjoys the smart rate of $249 per night at a top-notch hotel, instead of the prevailing $400-700 per night that is more common when you reserve a room anytime after August for the following year.

May 2011 – Mike Langford moves to Texas. This ensures that Mike and Jeff won’t be sharing the same room at SXSW and will therefore not kill each other. *The prevailing belief here is that Mike would have killed Jeff for his snoring. It’s a win-win for everyone.

June – Sept. 2011 – Jeff waits for JetBlue to put their March flights on sale.

Sept. 2011 – March JetBlue flights go on sale and Jeff buys a seat next to Steve Garfield on NerdBird 1.

Oct. 2011 – Nothing happens other than multiple conferences, speaking gigs, teaching sessions and other real-life ingredients. But we’re discussing the fairy tale land of SXSW, so these things don’t count.

Nov. 2011 – Jeff contacts the SXSW offices and asks them if he can use the pass he got in 2011 but didn’t use, for admission to the 2012 festival. They say YES! Jeff is ecstatic – and in his joyous response offers up his liaison services to the conference committee (thinking they’ll say, “no, that’s OK, we don’t need you” and he’ll get a free badge). That DOESN’T happen. They say they could use Jeff’s help and he is pressed into service, rendering his ‘free’ badge really not free as he has to work for it again.

Dec. 2011 – Feb. 2012 – Jeff works like a dog as a panel liaison. He starts prepping his liver for SXSW. And he contacts people like Aaron Strout, Peter Kim and Chis Anderson to arrange to see and hug them while in Austin.

March 2012 – The festival approaches quickly. Jeff joins Derek Peplau and John Refford in getting strategy together for their assault on Austin. Jeff also joins folks on a Google Hangout to discuss different events throughout the week. Finally, Jeff rents a banjo so he can practice during his downtime at SXSWi.

Goals and Aspirations…

For this year’s SXSWi, I’m looking to do five things. Yes, this is more than the three things your high-school English teacher said you should start with when writing an essay. Deal with it. SXSWi is a big event and three would be too few when it comes to goals. Therefore, I plan to…

1 – …collect and create and share content. Lots of it. I’m bringing a DSLR that I expect to have with me all the time. I plan to share photos to my Flickr site, videos to my YouTube channel and assorted content to Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and maybe some of my blogs.

2 – …take in at least a few educational sessions and actually learn something about technology, the world around me and the people who are making things happen in the aforementioned world. This will likely require me to be at the Convention Center during the day, so that will also happen. Look for me there. I’ll be the one who looks like me and I’ll be wearing an Adam Cohen name badge.

3 – …enjoy some seriously good food. The BBQ, Mexican fare and other dishes in Austin are great. I expect that some of the people mentioned in this post will also join me for a meal or two. I will be sharing information about the food I eat via my Boston Food Fan blog and various social media sites.

4 – …film an episode of NomX3 with Mike Langford. The chemistry, the humor and the intelligence in this show is unrivaled and we’ve come up with a plan to continue the series. Join us in Austin for a live lunch taping of the critically acclaimed NomX3. To see any of our existing shows, visit NomX3.com where you’ll find 45 episodes of genius and good taste.

5 – …discover some new technologies, meet some new people, and do some things I’ve never tried before. I’d like to experience some bluegrass music. I’d like to run into Lance Armstrong. I’d enjoy talking about new tech gadgets with companies that are there to unveil their latest products and services. These things will be details here, over at The Gadget Reporter, or in video interviews that I’ll post to YouTube.

That’s about it in a nutshell. How do you plan to capitalize on your SXSWi visit? What, if anything, would you want me to search out and report on if you’re not going to be there?

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: #sxsw, Austin, festival, food, mike langford, nomx3, technology, travel

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I just got off a couple big speaking engagements, I have a few more coming up fast, and I have client work that will fall by the wayside if I take this upcoming weekend to go ‘network’ with thousands of my social media colleagues.

Will I miss the barbecue? Will I miss the booze? Will I miss the conversations?

Most certainly.

If you talk to anyone, this event is worthy of your attendance if you do anything in marketing, technology, social media or content. It’s got a target audience that any brand would be thrilled to reach. And it’s one non-stop, energy-packed party.

But, if you chill your heart for a moment and take a look at the event with a green eyeshade on, you might see it differently. As I said in my post earlier this year, I wasn’t going to go if I wasn’t being paid to be there. It didn’t make financial sense then and it still doesn’t. Here’s the nuts and bolts for those of you that still scream, “but the booze is mostly free, the parties are all open and you can get food on the cheap! How can it be expensive?”

Let’s start with the hotel.

$2121.75 for a room at the Hilton Austin from 3/11 to 3/16

$489 for a roundtrip flight on JetBlue – the #nerdbird – if you booked by January 1. The flight no longer has space and similar flights are now upwards of $1400 for that same trip.

$500 for entertaining, meals, incidentals and so forth. This includes the meals you’re going to have to eat. The after-party drinking that takes place. The parties that don’t really give free booze. And the Starbucks you’re going to need each morning.

$2000 for the work I would leave on the table by being absent for six days – my clients often require me to work onsite, so if I’m not around I don’t get paid.

$1250 for the speaking gig I would have to abandon because I’d be out of town. My rate averages between $500 and $2500 for a training session, so it’s fair to price that as possible lost revenue.

So, if you take a pencil to these numbers, you can easily see – even if I estimate low – that I would be spending around $6000 to go south this weekend and party like it’s 2011. That validates my earlier post about not going if I’m not getting paid to be there. And it mirrors to some degree what some other folks have said about not attending this year either.

I still wish I were going. I’m gonna miss it horribly. But for me, there really are 6000 reasons not to go this year.

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: #sxsw, Austin, BBQ, convention, Jeff Cutler, mike langford, networking, nomx3, revenue, robert scoble, strout, training

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Food is near and dear to my heart. I’ve been through times and situations where I wasn’t allowed to eat solid food for six weeks and times when I was on a liquid diet for months. But I’ve also been feted at the most luxurious restaurants on earth and have dined on food that still makes me sigh orgasmically.

With that preface in mind, the meal I had last week in Las Vegas was top-notch and as memorable as any other on record. Here’s the situation…

I was in Las Vegas on business and my friend Kevin Palmer sent me a message. It implied that Kevin had set me up with either the folks at Caesar’s or Aria Hotel and they were going to take care of me. Being a skeptical human, I wasn’t sure whether I should believe Kevin and thought nothing of his note until I got a Twitter update from @arialv.

It said that Aria would like to speak with me privately about having a meal at one of the signature, on-site restaurants….Jean Georges Steakhouse.

Aria and I traded a few emails and it was decided. I would dine at Jean Georges with a friend and I would be the guest of Aria Hotel.

WHAT?! That’s right. As guest of the hotel I could order anything I wanted and my only obligation was to enjoy myself. Well, I did that all right.

With Kristina and Reggie and Taron waiting on us (I took my friend Derek Wilmot to dinner as an objective observer), we experienced all five, six or seven stars Jean Georges had to offer. We started with wine.

Beginning with wine at the table (see photos above of handwritten note from Reggie for what we had), we chose the tasting menu and set ourselves up for a treat. Here’s that menu…

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aria hotel, CES, food, Jeff Cutler, Las Vegas, nomx3, review

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Want the W’s? Here you go…

Who – Jeff and NomX3 looking for a catering company to assist us with an on-site office lunch taping.

What – I dropped the ball and waited far too long to contact our catering sponsor. When I finally called, they were in a time crunch and were short staffed. So I needed to find a restaurant that offers a variety of food options and could handle the short-notice of catering for an office crowd.

When – Today, just minutes ago. Seriously. I tweeted my problem at 9:30, I had an answer by 10. Boloco also does catering if you weren’t aware. Seriously! And they do it with style.

So, the hero in this play of Jeff’s planning mishap is Boloco. Really. The burrito chain has been open and supportive in the past and I asked if they might have the bandwidth to assist our show with some food for a small office. They didn’t blink. In 15 minutes we had hashed out a menu and plan for today that got me out of a bind and further cemented my belief that there is a right way to run a business. Look at Boloco and that’s the right way.

Now, I’m running around the house trying to collect the cats and get out the door. But my major concern for today was the food for NomX3 at Kel & Partners in Southie and that’s taken care of.

Do you have a favorite favor story? Either where you helped someone or they helped you? Please share it. In today’s world of SocMed connected people and organizations, it’s much more likely that people you’ve only met online have reached out to help you out of a bind.

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: boloco, food, lunch, nomx3, social media

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At a late morning meeting recently with a fellow entrepreneur, as we were wrapping up I mentioned my next meeting had been postponed and asked if he had time to grab a bite to eat and he responded how lucky I was to “afford the luxury of lunch.”

His comment made me realize that life and business are really about choices.  Maybe it is because I grew up in a food town or have a family whose reunions and vacations revolve around meals but to me the most important meetings on my calendar involve the people I want to break bread with.

Meeting over a meal allows you to get to know your client, prospect or colleague both professionally and personally.  I guess I should admit that I am not a big capabilities presentation or PowerPoint person so having a conversation over a meal really plays to my strengths.  It can be awkward to take notes over linguini so having a good memory for details and follow up is critical.  A few friendly tips that might also be helpful:

• Choose a restaurant where you can have a conversation without screaming over the noise

• Order food that is not too complicated or messy to eat while chatting

• Turn off your cell phone and PDAs, there is nothing that sends a signal that your time and presence matter more than giving someone your undivided attention at all times

• Don’t just talk shop, ask about their interests, hobbies, travels.  Getting to know what makes people tick will help you be a better strategist, coach, boss, colleague, consultant and friend.

Bottom line is that I do not see lunch as a luxury.  The body needs nourishment several times over the course of a day so you really do need to stop and eat every now and then.  Meals used to be a pleasure, something you enjoyed not a quick distraction while on the go or in your car to relive a splitting headache.  So, do you have time to grab a bite?

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: lunch, mavens and moguls, nomx3

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