IdeaFestival Bound

A few months back I got an e-mail from my friend Kevin Smokler asking if I might have some free days in September to go down and check out this years IdeaFestival. I had never heard of it, but if Kevin was involved then I was interested in hearing more about it.

Turns out that it is "a world-class event that attracts leading and highly diverse thinkers from across the nation and around the globe to explore and celebrate innovation, imagination and cutting-edge ideas" that got it's start back in 2,000. It reminded me of TED or PopTech, both which I'm a huge fan of.

So tomorrow I'm jumping a plane and headed to Louisville, Kentucky for the rest of the week.

I'll be honest that I'm not sure what to expect. It has been a long time since I was only an attendee at a conference. Usually I'm on stage speaking at some point, but for this event I'm officially media. I'm actually excited that I will barely know anyone there at all. Making new friends is always fun to me.

In full disclosure, the event is flying me down and covering my hotel and ticket to the event while I'm there. They are doing this with several of us who have been deemed influential in one form or another. When I saw the bios of the other people being brought down like myself I kept wondering how in the world they pulled this diverse group together. I mean that in a very positive way.

So, I don't know what the rest of this week holds for me. I'll be tweeting during the event, taking photos and pushing content out on most channels that you can find me at. The hashtag for the event is #IF11 so if you follow that I'm sure you'll be able to play along at home.

Rumor has it, I'll have some time to go exploring as well. Since I've only been to that area once (and it was a quickie) I can't wait to see everything it has to offer.

If you are headed to this event as well, let me know. Would love to connect and say hello.