If there is one thing worse than getting ready to go away, it is coming back!
All that preparation and when you get back there is so much with which to catch up, telephone calls to make and meetings to attend.
I must not complain because I have just returned from a wonderfully busy and fulfilling trip, not quite to Memphis, Tenessee but to (nearly) nearby Nashville, via Chicago and New York for the 2011 ILTA (International Legal Technology Association) Conference.
Not quite as exotic as the trip undertaken by my neighbour on the outbound flight who hailed from Lincolnshire and was bound for Jackson Hole via Denver and then on into the wilds of Idaho to spend a week camping and rounding up wild horses! However, I had never been to the true South of the US before, (I do not count Florida) and was delighted by the warmth and the friendliness I met everywhere.
This is not the time or the place to tell you about the music promotions manager who was a part-time hotel receptionist at the very comfortable little hotel where I stayed, some 15 minutes walk from the entrance to the 57 acre Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Conference Resort where ILTA held its conference after having to move last year to Las Vegas on account of the severe flooding in the area in 2010. Nor is this the right opportunity to tell you about the Walking Horse Celebration in Shelbyville, where a trip was organised by my good friend Carol Owen of Walker Lansden Dortch and Davies nor the excellent pulled pork I enjoyed courtesy of the kind invitation from the partners of Miller & Martin (Robert Holland, Melvin Malone and Brian Jackson).
What I can tell you is that the conference itself was populated by as enthusiastic a group of technologists, marketers and lawyers as I have ever encountered on my travels: keen to learn, happy to share experiences and above all welcoming to the newcomers (neither I nor my colleague Naj Bueno had been to an ILTA conference before). It was an extraordinary experience and so much credit must go to the organisers of this huge conference and particularly Peggy Wechsler from whom I even attempted to learn the rudiments of line dancing one “enchanted” evening!
Not to go there either!
I am planning to write a bit more about the conference in later posts but wanted to set the scene first so as not to tax my readers with too much all in one go! Just because everything in the US is bigger than in Europe (and that goes as much for the portions as to the Gaylord Hotel itself) does not mean that everyone else has to suffer!
In the meantime I trust you can contain your impatience to learn more about the Athens of the South in succeeding posts.