Archive for October, 2009

As expected, a lot of the attendees are posting their recaps of the ShareASale ThinkTank event this past weekend, so I thought I would share as many of them as I can find with you, along with some more pictures of the event.? My recap is below amongst the pictures.? Yesterday I posted my Lessons Learned from ThinkTank

Unfortunately, I often forget that I have a camera and so I only took a few pictures, most of them of the beautiful golf course views and of Shawn Collins’ face

Shawn Collins Recap - Great recap. Shawn (@affiliatetip), Missy Ward (@missyward), and Jason Rubacky (@jasonrubacky) followed my foursome around on the golf course and constantly stalked us.? Weirdos :)? I had forgotten about that until I read the recap.? He covers other stuff too.

Joe Sousa Recap - Joe (@drcool73) is an absolutely awesome dude that I finally got to meet this weekend.? His misfortunes on the golf course were legendary and amused the masses profusely.

Logan Thompson Recap - I thoroughly enjoyed meeting with Logan on Saturday. Thanks for the kind words in your post!

Missy Ward Recap

Scott Jangro Recap - Scott is a fellow Red Sox fan so it’s always enjoyable seeing him.

Friday Tara and I went to Balboa Island and enjoyed the shops and ate breakfast there.? I had salt water taffy for the first time in my life and ate about 50 pieces over the weekend. Yum!

When we got back to the hotel, I headed to the golf course and warmed up before playing golf with Rob Duva of Ring Revenue, Durk Price of eAccountability, and David Zelken of ShareASale.

Me, Durk, Brian, Rob, and David

David Zelken taking a rip

We had a lot of fun and truly enjoyed the views of the course.? Here are some views of the course:

View of the 5th Hole at Pelican Hill from the 4th Tee

Number Seven on the South Course

14th Hole on the South Course

View from 14th tee back to the 13th hole

Here is a view courtesy of Shawn’s Flickr stream from the balcony where we ate breakfast and lunch Saturday of the 18th hole on the South Course at Pelican Hill:

South Course 18th Hole - Pelican Hill Resort

Friday night, we had a great networking reception and the food was absolutely incredible.? I met some awesome people for the first time, like Liz Fogg Abanon (@eababon) and Mike Lyman with Signing Time,? and caught up with some old pals and acquaintances like Deborah Carney (@loxly), Joe Wojciechowski, Melanie Seery (@mellies), Ratna Venigandla, Adam Riemer, Geno Prussakov (@eprussakov), and more.

Saturday morning started off with a great breakfast.? I ate a LOT so I was in the mood for a nap after that, but instead I caffeinated myself and headed into the first sessions of the day.

After the men and women demographics sessions, we had a break, during which I began an apparently new trend of dipping white chocolate shavings into whipped cream, a la tortilla chips, at the coffee bar.? Yum!

Then it was time for my session, only I forgot it was my time.? I sat at my table looking up at the panel thinking “who is the doofus that is missing his panel?”? Come to find out that it was me! Oops!

So I ran up and began our session on Education and Life Experience.? My panel included Iman Jalali of Train Signal IT Training, Mike Lyman of Signing Time, and Kelly with Viator Travel.? Here is a picture of that.

Panel on Education and Life Experience at ThinkTank

One of the cool features of the event was the big screen Twitter feeds behind us.? Of course, I, with my infinite ADD, got stuck behind the laptop controlling the screens and was constantly distracted by the various humorous posts with the hashtag #thinktank09, especially Shawn Collins’ hashtag spamming efforts.? He will stop at nothing!

After our sessions, we all had lunch with the various vendors.? Each vendor had a table and it was great to sit down with some of them and discuss how we could work together.? I truly finally meeting Sabrina Malone from WorkingMom.com and her husband for the first time. Sabrina, your painting course is on the way!? I also got to catch up with Angel Djambazov (@djambazov).? Here is the setting of the lunch:

Vendor Lunch at ShareASale ThinkTank

Shawn Collins and I Talking and Enjoying the View on Saturday

After lunch I wanted to take a nap, but instead I changed into shorts and a T-shirt (I was sweating profusely in jeans and long sleeve shirt) and headed over to our private cabana around the pool for meetings with affiliates.? What a cool setting!

ThinkTank Cabanas

Meeting with Jen Goode and Joe Sousa

Part of the way through, Brian brought us cupcakes and I devoured at chocolate with chocolate and more chocolate cupcake. Then I slept while affiliates came by and stole courses (kidding!).? It was around 5:00 PM and I had a break and found out that Tennessee lost to Alabama on a last second blocked kick.? I was then depressed for a bit but thankfully I got to meet with some people who cheered me up and truly inspired me.

That night, Tara and I headed down to Laguna Beach for dinner.

Sunday morning started off with another amazing breakfast. Waffles, and muffins, and omelets, oh my!? Then we had the “Things We Need to Fix Session” with Brian and the ShareASale crew.? Everyone had the ability to openly share feedback, ideas, and pose questions to each other and ShareASale.? It was a great learning experience as well as a great time to offer some ideas to ShareASale and discuss them with other merchants, affiliate managers, and affiliates.

Things We Need to Fix Session

Shawn Collins During the Session Twittering Away