I'm writing this post from the VIA Rail station in suburban Ottawa. In a few minutes my wife and I will board a train for Toronto for BlissDom Canada. The world we're heading into is very much my wife's world. She's been part of this community for years; I'm the relative newcomer.
Ever since I joined the YMC team I've felt like a relative outsider. The staff, bloggers and readers have been great and welcoming, dont' get me wrong, but it still feels like I'm here on a guest pass somehow. I'm speaking during the Power Hour on Saturday and I'll be going into this in more detail during my talk so I don't want to scoop myself here. Suffice to say, I'm still learning how to fit into this world, even after almost a year's worth of posts.
And in an interesting turn of events, I'm also a BlissDom Community Leader and I'll be hosting the Social Media Marketing roundtable. This, of course, is much more my wheelhouse. I've spoken at events and hosted discussions on digital marketing (including social media) dozens of times, formally and otherwise.
The ironic thing, of course, is that social media marketers rely on platitudes like "be authentic" and "be human" like mortals rely on oxygen. And yet here I am, the "mentor" for social media marketing (their word, not mine), shitting bricks about actually having to be authentic and human as I do my first conference presentation as a dad blogger.
Well, here goes nothing.
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