We made it! BlogMutt boots on the ground in Beantown. Inbound will never be the same again…or something.
I will be your Inbound concierge with updates on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Watch this space and follow us on Twitter for the stuff that didn’t make it.
This terrible picture was only taken to ensure that I didn’t use company funds for a secret vacation. Here I am, in front of the Boston Convention Center (I think that’s what it’s called) as proof of purchase that I’m not sipping Mai Tais on a beach in Fiji exhausting the BlogMutt coffers.
I also need a shave.
No no. I’d much rather endure the ungodly humidity and 90-degree temps to press the flesh with America’s inbound marketers underwritten by our CMS overlords, HubSpot.
(Oh, how I miss you, Rocky Mountain Dry Colorado)
#Inbound15 – Day 1ish Recap
Tuesday isn’t really an official day, per se. But if you’re so inclined, there are super expensive pre-training courses that you can attend prior to the meeting’s official start that I eschewed for a morning run.
Here’s a dandy shot (thank you Instagram filters) I took on my way back from Cambridge along the Charles with downtown Boston in the background. There’s a running meetup with HubSpotters tomorrow at 6:00 AM and I don’t want to get left in the dust.
The good news about getting to Inbound early is the fast registration process. The staff on hand couldn’t have been nicer. Every part of the process, from entry, to registration, was met with warm smiles. HubSpot nailed first impressions.
And look, they correctly capitalized BlogMutt (an ongoing pain point for me when we leave the typing to 3rd parties…nice work HubSpot).
While in the process of registering, I chatted up a few folks (names censored to protect the innocent) and am happy to report that these pre-training sessions were awesome. Next year, I’ll have to check one out and give you a first-hand account of where all that money goes.
Unnecessary fun(?) fact: We are an official partner of HubSpot’s and get a cool green lanyard (not shown). Couple that with the correct capitalization of BlogMutt and it’s the small wins that go a long way.
Keynote Speaker Seth Godin
So the one big thing that couldn’t be missed was the keynote speaker tonight, Seth Godin. He was described by Deadhead David Meerman Scott as a “life coach” for marketers. It was a standing-room only crowd, but fortunately, we pulled some strings and nabbed a pret-tay, pret-tay choice spot.
Seth’s Key Takeaways
Seth held court for an hour and dispensed the following nuggets to a well-behaved crowd (i.e. they weren’t on their phones pecking away the whole time).
But first, an awesome doodle I pulled from Twitter by @dkardys.
That in a nutshell is the range of Seth’s keynote. Too much to possibly recreate for you here, but a few highlights worth mentioning.
1. “There is no such thing as writers block because there is no such thing as Talkers Block”
A great takeaway for bloggers. We get customers who don’t know what else to blog about. Well, what do you talk about with customers, friends, colleagues, suppliers? There’s your next million blog posts.
2. Seth quoted Leonard Bernstein: “I’m not sure what the question is, but the answer is ‘Yes'”
Essentially, try stuff. And don’t be gun shy about trying stuff.
To further elucidate his point, Seth added that the answer for trying stuff is changing the culture from “we’ve always done it this way” to “let’s give it a try.” This is a page from the BlogMutt playbook. Try it. Worst thing that can happen is that it fails, but we’ll never know if we don’t try it to begin with.
Seth mentioned that Stephen King wasn’t a best-selling author until he wrote his first novel. Gotta start somewhere.
3. “People who take responsibility, get responsibility”
Loved this line. Don’t ask for permission if you’re ready to handle the responsibility of your actions. I hate using the word empowering, but this was the most empowering quote of the night for me. Just do it, take responsibility, and you’ll get more out of your job.
4. “Show up everyday. Do the work. Make change happen. Don’t wait to be picked.”
It’s easy to be cynical when you hear these marketing aphorisms. Things like “tell your story” and “culture” and a million other catch phrases that get bandied about. But for me, advice like this is good to hear. I heard another great line from a former boss of mine: “Life defaults to the aggressor.” Couldn’t agree more.
5. “Act as if”
He actually used this quote. Which made me chuckle as I wasn’t sure if he knows the famous scene from Boiler Room (you can search for it yourself, as we try to uphold family-friendly appearances on the blog) but the point is to “act as if” you are a risk-taker or highly creative or a strategic thinker and you will become it.
It’s very self-helpy, but if you act with confidence than it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s a lot of power in “acting as if.”
There we go! See? My seat wasn’t THAT bad.
For more in-game musings, check out our Twitter feed as I will be live-tweeting from Inbound with such time-savings tips such as:
Free #INBOUND15 life hack. Skip the taxi line and use public transportation. My shot of the line from the bus window pic.twitter.com/1olYlBPwWh
— BlogMutt (@blogmutt) September 8, 2015
Oh! And if you’re at Inbound shoot me a Tweet and we can connect. I need friends.
