People Flow and Events/Conferences

1/ I attend at least one conference/event a week. Sometimes three a week! I started attending so many events pre-pandemic that as the pandemic was ending I decided I would start hosting events as I missed seeing people during the pandemic. I’ve started running so many events that I now occasionally tell others that I’m a “community organizer.”

2/ The first time I heard the words “community organizer” was when Barack Obama was running for POTUS. I scratched my head in 2008 when I heard that phrase but now I understand that community organizers are influential because they mobilize people and ideas.

3/ Learning technology, hard skills, & AI are critical but perhaps the best superpower is still learning and building relationships.

4/ In the venture capital industry, VCs love to talk about how they have incredible “deal flow.” For CEOs and marketers they love to highlight how strong their “leads” are. Those are all silly or fancy words for “people flow.” Deals/leads are People (Soylent Green reference)!! The only way to have high quality people flow is by meeting (and trying to help) people.

5/ Attending events is NOT my natural instinct. In fact I believe I'm a calculated introvert. I get recharged by reading books and going for runs (increasingly with my teenage boys who are starting to test my sprinting and endurance). But people work with people they know so a way to meet people is to attend events. Meeting people is a requirement for building.

6/ I’ve started to think of the schools I’ve attended as one giant event/conference. And all the events I attend now as continuing ed. There’s something about meeting someone in person where opportunities are more likely to be shared than when done over email or phone.

7/ I’m a big fan of Zoom but it will never replace the power of an in person meeting. In fact, about a week ago I met Eric Yuan, the CEO of Zoom, at a conference and we had a short but delightful conversation & I told him how transformative Zoom is!

8/ My ABCT parents were delighted to see this selfie. They have little idea what I work on but this one selfie from an event gave them confidence that I’m not like my middle school self and up to no good or spending all my time playing Starcraft or Civ 2.

9/ We host so many events at Context VC, The Military Veteran, & Media Mobilize that we have a Google doc: https://bit.ly/455XQVk

We hope to see/meet you at some or all of these events:
A. With Lightspeed and Context VC next week: https://bit.ly/3pD3Og3
Thanks Barry Eggers and Connor Love for co-hosting!

B. The Military Veteran event in SF & NYC: https://bit.ly/42KSltz

C. With Greylock and Context VC in July: https://bit.ly/3OjBN7M
Thanks Lee Haney, David S., & Asheem Chandna for co-hosting!

D. Service to School's Convene: https://lnkd.in/eGfbfKpN

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