I should have written this yesterday. But when I got home from Austin, expecting to brace against the last throes of winter, I instead found a forecast for temps in the 70s for the foreseeable future. Then I got an e-mail that the open-air ice rink was closing three weeks early, and the golf course was offering a Spring Surprise deal of $10 for 9 holes. This, plus the sudden absence of pain in my thigh muscles*, led me to the inescapable conclusion: it was time to hit the links.
* I have given a name to my pain, and that is "Tabata Squats." Which is also the name of my next band.
My main goal for this post is to attempt to recap the Dad 2.0 Summit, and the closest thing I can compare it to was a trip to an Austrian ski slope during my European backpack trip of 1989. I wasn't much of a skier, so I had this brilliant idea to head to the top of the Femur Creamer and figure it all out on the way down. I did a face plant about 20 yards out of the gate, and somersaulted for about 200 more, before landing splayed and upside-down in a snowbank. And when I looked up, a circle of heads above me kept saying, "Dude! That was AWESOME!"
The conference's theme was "From Uncertainty to Enchantment," but when I chose it I had no idea how closely it would apply to me. I'm new to entrepreneurship, and all the attendant passions and headaches of nurturing a start-up company. And given my nature, it was really easy to focus on What Can Go Wrong. Like the weather, which forecasters said would be rainy and 30 degrees below normal for the exact four days we were there. We had a crap-ton of outdoor stuff planned, including two parties with a band and lots of sexy Xbox and LG gear, and already the grandeur of Lost Pines was being reduced to a windowless ballroom.
See Doug fret. Fret, Doug! Fret!
The difference this time, however, was that I somehow found a way to keep an eye open for What Can Go Right.* Like when Huggies made national press by flying in to talk with us about how to atone for their disastrous ad campaign. And when LG's Senior VP for U.S. Marketing joined our Brand Forum at the last minute and let us send off two attendees with new 55" Cinema 3D televisions.
* I blame Laura for this, because it's impossible to work with her without absorbing her fundamental optimism, and her calm in the face of turbulence.
Thank you speakers, who all came on their own dimes and made the Dad 2 Dozen exceed even my loftiest expectations.
Thank you sponsors -- including Honda, Johnson & Johnson, Kinect for Xbox, LG, and Zatarain's -- who braved the uncertainty of funding a small, first-time event and fit into it so seamlessly. And to the sales team, who brought them all on board and worked so hard to fulfill their needs.
Thank you Carrie and Laura, who trusted us with their brand and showed us how to make the right moves.
Thank you Marla, our Director of Media and Technology, whose skill and equanimity stabilized us all.
Thank you John, the ablest and hardworkingest partner you could ever find, who is every bit his Twitter handle.
And thank you to everyone who came out to support the dad community and made our conference into the exact thing I wish I'd been able to attend. We're going to build on this, at Dad 2.013 and beyond, but I'll never forget that all of you were here first.
