With much frustration and sadness, I wanted to let you know that I won’t be attending ASW this year.
A close family member has been sick for the last few months and some labs came back this week that weren’t good. All that to say, I’m needed here with family and the baby since they are my first priorities. Everything should be alright in the long term, but for now, family calls.
This is the first Affiliate Summit West or East I’ve missed in a long while, and it tears me up to think I won’t be there with all of my close friends and colleagues. I look forward to these gathering of the tribes so much because we are such a tight-knit community. Plus, I was really excited to hang out with the PartnerCentric team.
All that to say, I’m missing one hell of a show and networking event. What Missy and Shawn have put together really has become an integral part of life/business/friendship to anyone involved in affiliate marketing. It’s a true testament to their hard work and dedication that we all look forward to these shows so much. I know I do, at least.
I’m technically on family holiday vacation this week, holed up in a lovely cabin in the mountains north of Asheville.
We have wifi here, but I decided to opt for the Touch and my Blackberry (and Kindle of course) over lugging up the Macbook Pro. I’m actually writing this on the Touch with the fantastic Wordpress app. Honestly, it’s pretty smooth and I need to do this more frequently.
What I’ve realized this week is that I can do most everything that I do on my laptop with just the Touch and the Blackberry. Tweeting, reading feeds in Google Rader, answering email, playing in Facebook, and now blogging are almost more enjoyable on the Touch over the laptop.
But what about “business stuff” like checking stats, reading and writing Docs and spreadsheets or FTP’ing into sites? All are (easily) doable and smooth in this sort of a mobile scenario. Actually, I’m really enjoying stretching myself and learning the new skill of mobile aptitude.
Of course, much of the content I create and consume is based in cloud computing rather than relying on a desktop. I make heavy use of all the Google apps. When I have needed a doc, I just access it in either Dropbox or on drop.io since I keep things sync’d on those places anyway. It’s worked out well.
So, my grand experiment in digital nomadicism is going surprisingly well. I could easily see myself just bringing the Touch and Blackberry to Affiliate Summit this month and leaving the Macbook home. 8 of my text books for the coming semester are in the Kindle, so my load for school will def be the Touch (Bible software apps are tremendous), blackberry and Kindle.
Digital nomadicism isn’t for everyone, of course. I unabashedly rely on web and cloud apps over desktop bound software and I’m not tied to an enterprise infrastructure that requires any special software. But a lighter load in a new year is always a good thing!
Lots of good nominees this year and congrats to all the finalists:
Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards Finalists Announced — MissyWard.com: “The Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards Gala is affiliate marketing’s most prestigious, competitive honor for the leaders in the space. Award winners are recognized because they are innovative leaders with vision and influence.
The Pinnacle Awards Gala is open to all attendees of Affiliate Summit West 2009 and takes place Monday, January 12th from 5:00pm-6:30pm in the Brasilia room at the Rio Hotel Las Vegas.”
My pal and former mentee (and frequent quoter of inspirational books on Twitter…ugh), Mike Buechele of 1115Media does a little thing on the Affiliate Summit Mentor Program (this year headed up by the awesome Jen Goode):
I’m participating in the program this year and have another awesome mentee who I’ll be introducing all of you to at the show. Hopefully, he won’t start pulling out inspirational quotes on Twitter anytime soon.
Whatever your persuasion (veteran or newbie), you really should participate. It’s a blast and a great way to meet new people.
Plus, I hear Jen is giving away signed lithographs of penguin art to the most awesome mentor/mentee team. Right?
The next episode of FeedFront is up and ready for your viewing pleasure via PDF. Or you can wait to get it in your mailbox or at the Affiliate Summit next month…
The Affiliate Summit team has put together a neat little Google Gadget for those of use who are always wondering how much longer we have to wait to fly out to Vegas for the show (come on, guys… how about San Fran or Phoenix or Denver one year??).
Regardless of location, Affiliate Summit is a can’t miss show if you’re in the performance marketing world or even the tech space and interested in how the web is being monetized.
