Leaving Las Vegas

I had the privilege of spending 3 days with C3 Technology Advisors ' leadership in Vegas. We met with industry leaders and thought leaders. Here are my takeaways and random musings. If you don't like long posts, then take your short attention span to TikTok or Twitter.

1. I enjoy the hard conversations more. There's a soft dishonesty in not saying what you think if it negatively affects both parties. I'm getting better at it, but I owe all of you even better.?

2. Our business coach, John Klymshyn , gave me a gem of a phrase - Comparison is the thief of joy. In Vegas, we are told that EVERYONE is killing it. Everyone is slaying deals. WE may be getting left behind. Our competitive nature gets the best of us and we FOMO our minds into mild depression/negativity. Thank you to some of the industry's best in helping me realize this - Courtney Humphrey , Dave Dyson , Tom McKeown (Side note - get a business coach. Don't be such an egotistical A-hole that you think you can figure it all out. John has done excellent work for us if you don't know where to start.)

2b - We work really hard. We need to celebrate our wins more. I know, it's hard. When do you celebrate? It seems like the struggle of moving from one sales stage to another, to installation, to post sales support, to actually earning, you know, earning money, is so stress riddled. Couple that with the uncertainty of tomorrow and true success oftentimes goes unacknowledged.?

3. James Anderson 's got a good heart. He cares about our space. I enjoyed seeing him get his 15 minutes of fame. (Pause... Now get off my stage.)

4. I apologize to many folks reading this for not taking meetings. Running C3 is hard. I have to focus on only the things that are vital to our success and outsource the rest. That means I uncomfortably have to say no to meetings with people that I do like and respect.?

5. I met a couple of vendors that I think are true innovators. One in a space that I thought innovation was truly dead in. We will further analyze this innovation and bake this into our consulting.?

6. I still love swearing. Sorry world... and my daughter who will probably grow up with a potty mouth.?

7. I miss seeing people regularly and the intimacy of a live, and if you're lucky, deep conversation. The eye contact, hand shake, body language, subtlety, and revealed vulnerability that rarely pierces the coldness of video calls. We need to see people more often. This is going to be my first piece of advice for my brother, Tim VanderMel . Let people experience who you are. Yes, it's not efficient, but I didn't fall in love(not like that) with a 720p video of Tim 12 years ago.?

8. C3 has a ways to go before becoming the best tech consulting firm in our space. But we're going to get there. I'm dually inspired and frustrated by our leadership team's frank discussion at dinner last night. We spoke at length about hard things. Let's keep doing that.?

9. Bravo to Channel Futures for putting on a great conference. Loved the energy. Scott Kelly was a great speaker.?

10. I get questions all the time, "Hey, Matthew, you should do this or C3 should go do that". I'm constantly vetting ideas and more ideas. But most ideas fail at least one of these tests -

• Who's implementing it? Who's measuring it's success? How do we measure success? Who owns it? How do we compensate success? How does it interplay with other objectives? What is the opportunity cost vs another idea or project? Now, I don't want to be the department of "No", but ideas without exquisite planning and execution will die. I'm glad I've got a great team for that planning and execution.?

See you next year.?