Tag Archives: ase09

We Were Both Too Tired To Sleep

We Were Both Too Tired To Sleep
Photo-A-Day #1586

My third and final day at Affiliate Summit East was full of blogging, keynotes and networking with some fantastic people. I started off early. I went to the Blogger’s Lounge an hour before it opened. I had written my post from yesterday late into the night on WordPad because I wasn’t going to pay for $18.95 Internet access in my room. The ability to write without distraction of twitter, e-mail and “Oh! Shiny!” is wonderful. I was able to pop on some headphones and just go at it and recall my whole day. I’m presently writing this post on the train bound back for Providence. I have a seat in the back (no one behind me thank God) and the car is nearly empty. Too bad the train was over an hour and a half late leaving. I have about 3 solid hours to write. So brace yourself this post is gonna be epic.

Having the Blogger’s Lounge to myself for the first hour of the morning was great. I was able to catch up on all the tweets I missed because I don’t have an iPhone and constant contact. Which isn’t great all the time but at a conference of this nature it is essential. I was able to post all my photos and write captions for them before posting up my actual post. I was also able to post up the infamous video of Ted Murphy (@TedMurphy), Me and Shawn Collins (@AffiliateTip) singing Milli Vanilli’s Girl You Know It’s True. Just wait, that thing will go crazy viral. I can’t wait to sing with Ted and Shawn again!

The photos were fun because last night I formatted all of them but wasn’t able to write out all the descriptions because it was so late. I hope that people are enjoying the photos that I’ve take with them using my Xshot, or their Xshot. I gave away 12 Xshots throughout the conference and there were many people who were very happy about that. Thank you so much to Michael from Xshot for sending me a case to give away.

I worked on the post and photos solidly until around 9:20am when I realized that I should eat something. I ran downstairs and got something to eat at breakfast and came back up to the Blogger’s Lounge to finish everything up and head off with Tim Jones (@Timothy_Jones) to the Peter Shankman (@Skydiver) Keynote.

Peter Shankman

Peter’s keynote was fantastic. He was funny endearing and brutally honest. He was also introduced by the ever-awesome Jim Kukral (@jimkukral).

Jim Kukral at Peter Shankman Keynote

I loved this keynote mostly because of the content but also because of Tim Jones. Sitting next to Tim Jones in a keynote is amazing. The guy is there on his MacBook, he’s writing notes about the keynote, tweeting, filming and writing most of his post about the keynote never missing a beat about what is being said. Tim put together a 3 minute ADOS (Attention Deficient,… Oh! Shiny!) video of the keynote that is great and since I cannot really remember specifics about the keynote I’m just going to link to some great tweets by Tim and his post: Peter Shankman Keynote Address at Affiliate Summit East 2009

Peter Shankman

During the keynote, towards the end Peter pulled out his Poken, he has a panda I have a Dragon. He explained how the Poken was going to be the next amazing breakthrough in making business and personal connections.I just received my Poken yesterday via FedEx from PokenGirl (PokenGirl). I was excited because I could finally Poken with someone else who got it. I mean, Tim certainly gets it so he counts but we already Pokened yesterday. Peter tossed a couple of Pokens to the crowd, Missy Ward and her son got some. After the keynote I went over with Tim to get some photos of us meeting Peter and exchanging “High 4’s”.

Peter Shankman and Tim Jones

Peter was selling the Pokens there for $20 and there were a bunch of people buying them.

Update: PokenGirl has offered a %15 off code for Affiliate Summit Attendees. Just use ase09 at checkout. Buy Your Poken Today. And if you would I’d love it if you bought it through my affiliate link there. I’ll be sure to High 4 you when next we meet.

@BenSpark and @Skydiver after Keynote with our Pokens

One person who wanted one was Stephanie Lichtenstein (@StephARC). She wasn’t carrying cash so I fronted her the money so she could get one. I don’t want to see someone cool going Pokenless. We had exchanged a few tweets recently and I figured, hey pay it forward. It wasn’t until people were starting to open and play with their Pokens that I realized that PokenGirl really hooked me up. She not only GAVE me a Dragon Poken for free but she got my Poken completely ready to roll. She pre-pokened my Dragon with her info and she also hooked me up with a lanyard. It was really nice of her to do that.

Stephanie and BajaLori (@BajaLori) posed for a few photos for me so I could get some great Poken action shots.

@BajaLori and @StephARC

I’ve posted them to Flickr and will put up my Poken review as soon as I have a moment to do some serious updating and upgrading to my Poken Profile. I will however help anyone who would like to have a custom Poken Card. Basically an image that is unique to your Poken Profile. This is sort of like a custom Twitter Background.

After the keynote I met Missy Ward’s Dad (@MissysDad) and we had a photo taken together by Missy’s sister.

BenSpark and @MissysDad

I also got to meet Jen Goode (@JGoode). We didn’t meet and talk much but I did get to High 4 her.I wanted to tell her that I love her episode of The Spew (Missy Ward’s Geekcast.fm show)

Peter Shankman selling Pokens at Affiliate Summit East

When the Keynote was over I went down and checked out of the hotel, came back up to the Blogger’s Lounge and there were all the IZEA Insiders who were at the conference. I finally got to meet Laurie (@Laurie_Pooh) and Corrin (@CorrinRenee). So we got a bunch of different Group Shots using our Xshots. Sometimes together and sometimes one at a time. Here is one of Heather Mary Smith, Blogger Lounge Mistress (@HeatherinBC, Connie Foggles (@ConnieFoggles), Me, Laurie, Corrin and Brett Bumeter (@BrettBum).

The IZEA Peeps at Affiliate Summit East

We also took one of all the IZEA Insiders Me, Heather, Laurie, Corrin and Brett.

IZEA Insiders at ASE09

I spent pretty much the entire rest of the day in the Blogger Lounge. There wasn’t really any session that I wanted to see and there was my Ultimate IZEAFest Prize Pack contest to work on. I got four great judges. Tim Jones, Famous Blogger Murray Newlands (@MurrayNewlands), Eric Schechter (@EricSchechter and my favorite Life Coach Kim Ann Curtin (@KimAnnCurtin). I know that I made a great choice in picking these judges. They watched each video read each blog post and determined the best choice for the Ultimate IZEAFest Prize Pack Grand Prize Winner. That person will be revealed on MarketLeverage TV on Monday August 17th along with the two runner up winners.

You’d think that being in the Blogger’s Lounge that you would go and miss everything that was going on but that is not the case. I met some wonderful people there and I gave away a bunch of Xshots to those people. I met Michael Pomposello of Content Written. We played a game of Wii Tennis for an Xshot. He smoked me and got his Xshot and we took a photo together.

BenSpark and Michael Pomposello

Michael is a really nice guy who has a great idea and company to help people who need content.

I also got a photo with BajaLori so that I could print her a special business card with my Pogo. She was all amazed at it and had some serious tech envy! That is okay Lori because you have a Poken now. BajaLori has the very special VIP Gorilla Poken. It is very cool.

@BajaLori and @BenSpark

I also got to Meet Connie’s daughter Peanut and her Husband. Peanut was a trip, she is so precocious but in a great way. She loves photos of Eva and cannot wait to meet her. She also liked the videos that Allison sent me of Eva watching Dada make a fool out of himself and dance with Ted Murphy and Shawn Collins. Connie is such a dear woman and her family very nice. I look forward to seeing her again at IZEAFest.

@ConnieFoggles and @BenSpark

The Blogger Lounge was Sponsored by Vemma. Vemma is a company that makes some delicious fruit juice that is full of amazing fruits and vitamins for you. They are starting an affiliate program and I’m going to get in on this. I drank their energy drink all weekend and at the end of the show they left a lot of product int he Blogger Lounge. Well I loaded up with it. I mean Loaded up. I took everything I could. Towards the end of the session. Bonnie Schroader (@BlogBonnieBlog) the Affiliate Manager for Vemma approached me and we chatted about the program. I liked that this a program that I can get behind. I have plenty of product to incorporate into my daily life for a while and give you a really good idea of the benefits to me and hopefully to you as well.

My Vemma Haul!

Yesterday when I met Gary Vaynerchuk (@GaryVee) I also met the head of Vemma, BK. Except at the time I did not know that. BK was pretty impressed with my Xshot as well as with my use of ZINK Paper in my Polaroid Pogo. And to think I could have gotten a photo with BK that night if I had only stopped and asked him who HE was. That is my big problem, I talk too much about me and not enough about other folks. I need to ask people more about what they want or what I can do for them. I have to learn from Affiliate Blogger/Famous Blogger and all around nice guy Murray Newlands. He always asks people, what can he do for them. Such a great question.

@BlogBonnieBlog and @BenSpark

I was also approached by a couple of guys from GTO Management. (Ted they have fantastic cards that are spelled right and everything and they do BOWLING Shirts, forget Hockey Jersey’s Bowling is more my sport anyway.) So Wade Tonkin (@Affile8Warrior) and Joel Garcia (@JoelGarcia) came over and gave me a great bowling shirt from BowlingShirt.com but I was talking to someone at the time and didn’t get photos with the guys, which I should have done.

Bowling Shirt from Wade Tonkin and Joel Garcia

At the time I was talking with a new blogger named Carrie Jaffe-Pickett. She had been talking with Heather and Connie for a while while I worked on photos and other items and then we got to talk. She had a bunch of questions but such a desire to learn and to put up with my complete ADOS was great because I was up down and talking with everyone who came by. I was trying to be everything for everyone and I apologize for not giving my full attention Carrie. I hope I was able to help you out with questions, you can always contact me if you have any further questions. Carrie is a Freelance Writer and she has a blog called CarrieWriterBlog.com

I gave Xshots to Courtenay Bird (@Courtenaybird) and also to Andre Natta (@Acnatta. I tried to give one to their friend but he already had one and was very abrupt with me about it. They must have been late. I have no idea who the guy was either. Oh well, Instead I gave one to Lewis Howes (@LewisHowes) and another to Sean Cohen (Scohen) of Aweber. Lewis was using the Xshot right away with his friend Alex Shalman (AlexShalman). I went over and got a great photo of the two of them using their flip with the Xshot.

Alex Shalman and Lewis Howes

I am looking forward to how that video comes out. Alex is going to hook me up with a great WP plug in too. I’m pretty excited.

Update: Alex hooked me up with the video that he and Lewis made witht he Xshot and the flip. Good Stuff.

Around 4:30 when all the bars were closing John Chow (@JohnChow) went and collected all the free drink tickets that he could find and he cleaned out a bar of all their beer. Then he and Kim Ann Curtin snagged a big rolling cooler full of ice so as to keep them all cold as they blogged. John Chow is one really dedicated blogger, vlogger and affiliate. He’s such a hard working guy, getting out there and producing content all the time. I shot this photo of him deep in concentration on the beer video.

John Chow, Hard at Work

A video of the beer that he just got. John is fast, super fast, that is why he is one of the best. When I left he said that we’d catch up again at Blog World Expo. I’m really seriously considering going. Does anyone have a spare pass?

I forgot to mention earlier that I had a really nice lunch with Murray Newlands and Connie. The menu was a Chinese Food one and there were Fortune Cookies. I love Fortune cookies and am going to bring back Fortunate Fridays. But today I took about six of them and cracked one open every 1/2 hour or so and tweeted the fortune. These were all so appropriate for the weekend and for what I learned about giving more to people and taking less. Listening and seeing what I can do for someone else. Chasing a dream and being grounded in reality. I have to thank once again Missy Ward (@MissyWard) and Shawn Collins @affiliatetip) for creating Affiliate Summit. More importantly I want to thank Missy for giving me a Platinum Pass to the event. She’d never met me before and I asked her what could I do to help, she just gave me the pass and I said I’d blog the event. I wasn’t as great a blogger in real time, like Tim Jones, but I think I did a pretty good time letting you know about what Affiliate Summit was all about. Missy is a class act and a simply amazing woman. I didn’t get a photo with her either. Man I am slipping. Well, there is always IZEAFest or future Affiliate Summits.

I Met Up With The Gambler

I Met Up With The Gambler
Photo-A-Day #1585

Today was another whirlwind day at Affiliate Summit East in New York. I started the day by visiting the blogger lounge where my friend Heather (@HeatherinBC) was Blogger Lounge Mistress. She ran the blogger lounge and helped out the bloggers who were there to post up their pictures and stories and many other things. I had to get my post from yesterday up so I did that along with my Photo-A-Day from yesterday. So I did that and then made sure I got breakfast and breakfast for Heather because she was tied to that blogger room for the day. Which was great because I could leave stuff there and come right back to it easily.

This morning I also met Connie of BrainFoggles (@ConnieFoggles). She is such a sweet lady. She saw me and asked, “Are you a hugger?” I said what the heck and she greeted me like an old friend, which we are because of our friendship through blogging. We had a really nice time in the morning and I worked fiercely to get that post and all my photos up and ready to go so I could start the day. Tim Jones (@Timothy_Jones) also caught up with us in the Blogger Lounge and he and I went to the opening Keynote which was done by Chris Brogan (@ChrisBrogan)and Julien Smith (@Julien).

My Mic is #1

They wrote Trust Agents together.

I had never seen Chris Brogan speak before. I had been following his twitter feed until I checked twitter karma and saw that he wasn’t following me. He follows so many people, why wasn’t he following me? So I unfollowed him and tweeted that to him, never heard anything but then again he’s a very sought after guy. Well, after hearing him speak today I quickly followed him again, he’s a guy you should be listening to if you are part of social media. He put so much of his personality into the session and was so engaging that I knew I had to start following him again regardless if he doesn’t follow me.

Update: Chris and I are cool. We are mutually following each other and may even hang out for a beer (like in the “Real” World) sometime. It had to be the Milli Vanilli song. I just know it.

Brogan is there on the carpet

Later in the evening I told him that same thing, we may catch up sometime back home because he is a local guy. I tried to tell him how much I thought his keynote was a good one but I think I should have lead with that rather than how I unfollowed him and only would follow (@JimmyBuffett) knowing from the outset that I wouldn’t be followed back.

The keynote was also emceed by Jim Kukral (@JimKukral)

Jim and I spoke last night in the limo and I really enjoyed what he had to say last night as well as today. I’m definitely going to give him a call after the conference.

After the keynote I went to the How to Monetize Your Site With Widgets. I wasn’t quite sure if I was in the right place and I asked this guy if this was the Amazon Affiliate session and he said that he sure hoped so because he was giving the talk. That was Andrew “Woody” Wood of Amazon.com. He had a really good session and I learned a lot about the widgets that are possible for blogs. After the session I asked him if we could get a photo together with the xshot and we did.

BenSpark and Woody Wood of Amazon.com

I have some great ideas for a mashup type widget for BenSpark.com that will be pretty sweet. While in that session I met Russ Wollam (RustyFenderMan) from HorseLoverz.com, The World’s Biggest Tack shop. They also sell items for pets because basically if someone has a horse most of the time they have a pet. Russ was a really nice guy. I also met Laszlo Ember from New Jersey State Auto Auction he was an interesting guy as well. I realized that my Photo-A-Day project really connects me to so many different things like my horse photos and my car photos.

After the session I went to the business office because I had to pick up my Poken. I was so excited to receive my Dragon Poken from (PokenGirl) via FedEx at the hotel. I felt like a secret agent because I had never received anything at a hotel before. I’m an affiliate of PokenGirl and if you are interested in purchasing one and high 4ing with me than cool, we can certainly do that. I’m going to do a full on review of the Poken once I get some people here at Affiliate Summit to High 4 me. The only person that has one that I know is Tim Jones, and he got his today. He has a caveman.

While in the blogger lounge I had a 15 minute session with Kim Ann Curtin who is a Life Coach and has the blog The Coach Shoppe. I had never ever wanted to talk to a life coach before to be honest. I like being and independent person. I’m very much a “shut up and do it” person when it comes to tasks for other people. I just get the job done. when it comes to tasks for me I shy away and do not push full on ahead. She cut through the crap and asked the questions that I should be asking and together we worked out a plan for a dream that I’ve had for a while. We put together an action plan and I’m going to work on it. She goes and gives 15 minute sessions to people on Wall Street, she’s really good.

BenSpark w Kim Ann Curtin

Hanging out in the Blogger Lounge I got to meet a guy that I’ve only recently become a fan of and that is Gary Vaynerchuk (@GaryVee). Gary was there visiting and I took a photo with him using my Xshot then I ran over to my PoGo and printed out our photo, slapped it to my business card and brought it right back to him he was pretty impressed and showed his friends.

BenSpark and Gary Vay-ner-chuk!

When I met him I asked him about the 80’s toys that show up on Wine Library TV. He-Man and WWF wrestlers. I didn’t get to ask if he had any Transformers that might make an appearance. It was a great time. Here is the photo that we took together

I also caught up with and finally met Eric Shechter (EricSchechter) from Clickbooth. He’s going to be a celebrity judge of the Ultimate IZEAFest Prize Pack Contest. We need to talk more on stuff and I hope to catch up with him tomorrow.

I went off to find a session, decided against it and then went off and met with a bunch of people up and the floors. I met my Publisher Manager at MarketLeverage, Erica Messore. That was a bit embarrassing because I was talking to Jen from MarketLeverage.telling her that I had never heard from my account manager and then looked at the business cards and realized that my manager was Erica, who was right there. We formally met and took a photo together so it is all good.

BenSpark and Erica Messore

Back down to the Blogger’s Lounge and I did two interviews. One with a guy named Mike Stark and the other with Murray Newlands (@MurrayNewlands). I’m looking forward to seeing what those are about. Also while in the blogger lounge I made a Mii Character of myself on the Wii and named it BenSpark. I said, I can guarantee that at least a couple of people will play Wii as my Mii. And I sat and watched at least six people do it. If that ain’t personal branding then I do not know what is.

Personal Branding on the Wii

After the Blogger’s Lounge I went back to my room and dumped most of my stuff and headed out to the MarketLeverage / John Chow Dot Com Pizza meetup at Ray’s Original or Original Rays (I can’t figure out which was which). There were quite a few people and I met Michael Buechele (mikebuechele) who is friends with Tim Jones. We also caught up with Dina (@MLDina) from MarketLeverage as well as Kim Rowley KIMarketing.com and BajaLori. We walked over to the pizza place and met up with everyone. The amount of pizza that came out hot and fresh for us was amazing. We had a really good time while we were there and I think I went and made BajaLori’s night with an Xshot of her very own. You would have thought I gave her $100.00 on the spot she was so excited.

While we were at the Dot Com Pizza party Ted Murphy (@TedMurphy) showed up and it was great to see him. Kim went over and introduced herself to him and I shot this photo of the two of them together.

Kim Rowley and Ted Murphy

Then as Tim and Mike and I were leaving we caught up with Ted on the stairs and I shot the Photo-A-Day shot. The thing that cracks me up about this is that the guy in the foreground was one of the people working at the pizza place. It is so random a shot that I had to use it as the daily photo. Ted told Mike, Tim and I that a couple of guys asked him to go outside for and interview and they were so excited to interview him and that they had watched all his podcasts and read his blog all the time. They thought that he was Zac Johnson (@moneyreign). No word of a lie. It was hilarious.

So I went back to the hotel and started writing this post and didn’t make it too far before I got a call from Ted that he was with Heather in the bar downstairs. He asked me to come down and for a while we hung out and talked about all sorts of things from babies to running and everything in between. I’m so excited for IZEAFest that I cannot even tell you! Hanging with Ted gives you this energy that is amazing. We eventually made out way upstairs and hang out at the Affiliate Summit Karaoke party.

BenSpark, @HeatherinBC, @Brett, @Ted Murphy and Shannon

We had free drink tickets, enough to get me and Ted up there to sing Milli Vanilli – Girl You Know It’s True with the Affiliate Summit man himself, Shawn Collins (AffiliateTip). I had a great time singing and dancing with Ted and Shawn. Heather taped the whole thing with the Flip cam. Here is our epic video. Please, no autographs. LOL.

As you can see I wore my I’m Not A Famous Blogger shirt today and it got a lot of attention.