1200 Miles West

Last Thursday before Indigo’s holiday party, I convinced the “old” CareerSite crew to be in a picture with me. Surprisingly (or maybe not!) Mike was the only one who complained.

While the CareerSite days in Ann Arbor a just a memory now, Mike and I are both fortunate that we still get to work with Shannon, Ryan and Shaun on a daily basis. Thanks guys!

Today, we spent the day working remotely from Sweetwaters Cafe in Ann Arbor. We were fortunate to get a table that allowed us to both plug in. Other than the chatty old bats that sent next to us, it was an enjoyable morning.

Here’s a few tweets from both Mike and I that were entered during our morning session:

mgminton remembering I am in Ann Arbor which explains why there are so many useless people with so much extra time.

mgminton trying to figure out why so many people have so much time to sit around in coffee shops and cackle like hens about useless topics.

erinmquinn The old ladies at the next table are talking about wearing thongs…I really need to turn up the volume on my IPod.

At lunch Mike met up with Dale at Red Hawk and I had lunch with Archie, David, Gordy and Shaun at Grizzly Peak. After lunch we spent some time with Shaun at the coffee shop discussing the world of Real Estate and the upcoming priorities for CareerSite. We finished out the work day by catching up on some outstanding emails.

After work we met up with the guys at the Grizzly Den. It’s a local brew pub that has a great happy hour.

It was great to catch up with everyone over a few beers. Here’s what we learned:

• Ryan still doesn’t have access to the internets at work
• Eric is now a fashion expert as he just finished working on a project for WetSeal
• David and his family are more than likely moving to Maryland, but St. Louis, Albany, DC and Indianapolis are still in the running.
• Archie is Archie. What else can we say?

Here’s a couple of pictures from the festivities:

These pictures were taken only about an hour apart. Which one of these
is not like the other?

Cheers to everyone who met up with us today! We miss all of you can hope to see you in Denver soon!

I guess I didn’t actually explain why we were in Chicago, so for those of you who aren’t familiar with the newspaper industry here’s a description from the National Newspaper Association’s website describing the conference we attended:

Top executives from the recruitment industry gather to meet and build relationships with their newspaper counterparts. No other even provides you such an opportunity to make as many sales contacts in one place, at one time, in such a setting.

So day two started with a continental breakfast followed by two morning sessions where recruitment based topics were discussed. After a decent lunch, we headed back for a few more sessions. Since CareerSite was one of the sponsors for the event, I had the opportunity to speak about our product/company for a few minutes. I’m just glad they don’t video tape these events!

The highlight for most conference participants is the social events that happen once the sessions are over. Our night was filled with two cocktail parties and then dinner at Joe’s Stone Crab. For those of you who have never been, this was no Crab Shack. The crab legs were $70 a piece! Our table consumed eight of these!

I also enjoyed a bone in fillet cooked medium rare along with some asparagus. Dessert included a little key lime pie. It was a definite treat, plus we had a great time with Joe Jr. from Shaker Recruitment Advertising.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and spent a little time socializing. Not only did I met Andrea Levy from Advance, but two of the guys from Adicio tried to convince me that I looked like someone from Saturday Night Live. Not being a fan of the show, I have no idea where they were going with that. The rest of the night was rather subdued.

The following morning we were up bright and early as Becki and I met Kristen for breakfast and then spent a couple of hours working before we met up with Tim and headed to the airport to fly home.

Becki mentioned that she wasn’t feeling well and I didn’t think much of it, but I must have caught what she was coming down with as I spent a majority of the next three days sleeping.

All in all it was a good trip. I don’t know what if any new business we’ll see as a result of the conference, but CareerSite left it’s stamp in Chicago and we’re eagerly awaiting our next trip to Orlando in Feb.