Last Wednesday, I had the afternoon free while I was in Boston. I used that free time as an opportunity to sight see around town. The easiest way to do that was to hop on the Boston Duck Tour (www.BostonDuckTours.com). The ConDUCKtor was Frim “DucKarma” Jolly, Boston’s good time guru. Frim drove us all through town, dodging traffic along the way. He pointed out the significant points at interest in Boston’s great history. He also pointed out a few insignificant facts, but that made things fun. Eventually, we got to the Charles river where our duck splashed down. Riding on the river provides a nice panoramic view of the city. The tour finished up back at the station in front of my hotel. If you are ever in Boston, I highly recommend taking a Duck Tour.
Last week I traveled to Boston for the SMPS (Society for Marketing Professional Services) Build Business national conference. The tagline was “Reinvent Retool Rebound” and the conference was energizing. I attended several educational sessions that were very interesting. My personal favorite was Harnessing Social Media to Enhance Competitive Advantage. Using social media tools in the AEC industry has been a challenge for most of us. This session focused on firms in our industry effectively using social media to connect with clients.
The Keynote presentations were excellent. Erik Wahl spoke about sharpening your creative skills to rethink your vision and purpose. While he spoke he created three paintings - Bono, Michael Jordan, Albert Einstein. It was a very inspiring presentation - I plan to get my paint supplies out this week. The other keynote speaker was Chris Brogan. Chris spoke on the use of social media as a marketing platform. His presentation was fun and entertaining, but was difficult to translate to a professional services environment.
It’s always nice to catch up with friends from other parts of the country. This conference was attended by people from as far away as Alaska and Hawaii and also included some attendees from our neighbors to the north in Canada.
Probably the highlight for me was my good friend and co-worker, Mike Totsch receiving the Chapter President of the Year Award. Congratulations Mike! You’ve done a phenomenal job in the Columbus Chapter. I’d also like to thank the Columbus Chapter for “adopting” me at the conference. There were only three of us from the Northeast Ohio Chapter, and Columbus had more than a dozen people. They were gracious to include us in there plans.
If you were not able to attend the conference, but would like to ask some questions and learn about some things the attendees took away, please check out the Build Business TweetChat on July 27th. Information can be found here: http://www.buildbusiness.org/tweetchat_ad.pdf