Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Way back in the ass-end of the plane, strapped firmly into the unluckiest row of the cabin–seat 13A, specifically–and mere inches across from the lone metal toilet charged with servicing 90 people, I sat in quiet contemplation as I appraised my week in Indy. I began with the situation at hand. How did I end up in this exact spot? I had checked in online 24 hours prior, harnessing the power of all the Internets to confirm that, yes, I still wanted to hurtle across the sky in a Delta-branded torpedo with wings. This was a pointless move on my part, clearly, because I can only assume their systems assign seating by last name, alphabetical order. But what can you do, you know?

Fortunately the rest of the trip went far, far better. Meetings were worthwhile, Bud Light tasted slightly less foul, and Train put on a solid show. I even learned enough about e-mail marketing to pass a certification test, the functional word here being “pass,” but hey! A “C” is really just an “A” in the making, right? I’d be remiss if I didn’t follow up on the other c-word–conversation–I had promised you before we left, and there honestly wasn’t a single go-to topic. I thought for sure it’d be sports or something like that, but good conversation proved, as always, to operate on its own accord, unplanned, shaped by its own twists and contours.

The highlight of the conference was listening to Sir Richard Branson hold forth during the Q&A after his keynote. I think it was the dichotomy of the scene that was so fascinating. There he was, knight errant of wealth, entertaining everything from a dinner invitation to an earnest plea from the president of the local chapter of model airplane flyers or some such. Never mind that nobody knew how the guy even got into the ballroom, and then to the open mic. It’s, like, do you really think Sir Richard cares? Fucker’s launching to outer space in a couple days, so no, I don’t think he gives two shits about your toy planes.

It may seem as if I’m getting surly here, which reminds me: networking was a rough proposition. Interacting with prior acquaintances? I can do that. But in a conference of more than 1,500 people, I probably spoke to no more than seven or eight new people, and I traded even fewer business cards. Part of it was my bad habit of projecting immediately how a certain situation will unfold, effectively limiting potential outcomes. Here, for instance, I figured distributing my cards would invite a bombardment of pitch calls the following Monday, which was minimally appealing to me. Even now, when I say it aloud, it strikes me as the scenario most likely to have unfolded, and I’m relieved I avoided it. The larger refrain, though, is the need to commit to either spreadsheets or people at this point in my career. Sure, there will invariably be a mixture of both, but where to focus? It’s a choice I need to make. Or, more accurately, it’s the illusion of choice, when really the choosing already happened.