A day of networking

Let me tell you about yesterday... the day I went to the conference focusing on Sports Event Management...

Its extremely exciting entering a foreign world... a world which many people have been working in for many many years... in some ways it feels as though you are trespassing in somebody elses party... in some ways it feels like coming to a new country, to a new city, to a new school... but its exciting and without doubt the day taught me a lot...

Attending the conference was well worth the financial sacrifice made, without a doubt... where else can you meet people who breathe the work that you want to do in the future. Where else can you listen to all the trends, all the hype, all the buzz words... what would have taken me weeks to research by myself on the internet, took me 10 hours during a conference... having met a lot of interesting people and observed how it all works, I'm pleased to say I feel I got my money's worth...

Did I get a job out of it yesterday? Not immediately but I'm quite confident that the experience and what I learned will pay itself off in the future... :-)

Sitting with the CEO of this and the CEO of that, people that on a regular basis meet the prime ministers and presidents of countries and are in senior positions, its interesting to see how they differ... they differ in their ability to talk, they differ in the messages they try to send out, they differ in age, they differ in cultural background... but what they all share is that in some way, they are successful... and are experts

It was interesting seeing a proper traditional old "Right Honorable" British minister speak ... all he does is speak for a living, talk is a politicians weapon... and there are few politicians in the world that can speak as eloquently as British politicians... incredible

It was interesting to see a Sheik offer his view... his perspective and way of speaking differed greatly to the ministers... his message and form of communication was far more in form of "teaching" the audience something... without doubt an experienced speaker but something tells me that he might have been a little out of his depths... in no way was it obvious as he was extremely talented and knowledgeable but there was something...

Or the Russian CEO who referenced to Vladimir Putin a great many times... his speech was powerful, I couldn't help but think many times throughout the speech that it had been written by some of Russias most intelligent speech writers. The Russians CEO's delivery was truly fabulous... but for some reason it seemed scripted ... something that could only be noticed in very brief moments...

Or the way with which different presenters used Powerpoint, and the strength of the powerpoints... some read every single word off of the powerpoint... obviously having not had time to prepare as much as others... others speaking for 40 minutes without so much as a piece of paper... there were 30 year olds who clearly have been able to speak their entire lives as the way they spoke could not be learned in 10 years, but must have been born with...

All in all the presentations were very well done... and extremely interesting... with laughs coming few and far between but when they did, they were extremely good.


These conferences are always interesting events, everyone spying the name tag to see who they are and who they are working for... everyone looking confused at my name tag as all it said was Richard Strom... and no Company... who was this guy?

A really striking image... Richard Strom followed by BLANK... that blank is clearly what I'm in the process of filling in... and the conferenc was a great step in the right direction!!!

No picture today... :-) I'll try to offer a good one tomorrow

A tiny break??

A crack in the ice? A tiny step in the right direction? A glimmer of hope? A ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds? Whatever you want to call it, I'm pumped. I'm Excited. I'm ready to go.

The first thing I found last week when I began looking for opportunities was a conference specially held looking at Sports Event Management... held in London on November 12th. Wow, I thought to myself... am I lucky or what... but when I noted what the delegate fee was I thought to myself "eh..."... So last week I called the event organisers to see if there was any chance that I could work at the event ... any unconventional way of getting in but not feeling the extent of the corporate delegate fee. Any way at all that they could help an aspiring young future sports event manager learn a little something... the response was positive and to get back to me next week

As the event is being held tomorrow, I wanted to call "last minute" so I called this morning and talked to one of the organisers. We came to an agreement. :-) Though it has resulted in a significant dent in my wallet, I was happy with what I could arrange with the guy. I am fully aware that sometimes... it's gonna hurt to find a job... and this time it was financial... its gotta be seen as an investment... heck, if i'm really in the positive mood I might just say go as far as saying I'm doin my bit to help in these hard financial situations by still consuming. :-) My money is now out there circulating, 1 penny might show up in the hands of a homeless guy in Düsseldorf , 100 SEK to a 15 year old teenager as allowance money.. another 223 in somebodys loose change Emergency Piggy bank. :-)

So my hard-earned cash is working hard out there.. tryin to save the economy...thanks bucky, thanks todd (don't we all name our money?)

and tomorrow its my turn to work it... Networking networking networking... thats the name of the game... and hopefully some fun stories to share...

wish me luck!!!

Today's picture wasn't taken by me... but its from the website of the conference... wonder why these men all chose to sit there in front of the sand??? what sport event might they be fighting for front row seats for???