Out-of-the-Box Empowerment in Atlanta

In case you didn't notice, I haven't blogged for a while. Although, I probably should have blogged a little bit more (and I apologize that I didn't), I did have a few good reasons...

I had the opportunity to go to Atlanta in the middle of February to showcase my speaking talents at the APCA National Conference. It's a conference where college students and advisors go to book all sorts of acts that could range from entertainment (music and comedy), novelty, and campus speaking. Of course, I've had a chance to showcase a little bit of my speaking.

I had a chance to give a few presentations. I got to give a 45-minute ed-session presentation about out-of-the-box ideas on how to promote, engage, and empower campuses, which was well attended. Although, I felt I didn't give that great of a presentation (in my opinion anyway), it was well-attended and well received. A notable thing I did in my presentation, was that I presented it wearing a very bright, and very loud Dragon Ball Z Club shirt. And my main reason for doing that, was to make the point that it's important to stand out in whatever you're doing, especially when it comes to engaging your campus. (Check out the shirt on the picture below that I took with a student)...

In the final day of the conference, I had a chance to give a 10 minute showcase, which is a very short version of what I would do in a keynote talk or workshop. I had my showcase taped, and I broke it down to five sections to make a mini video series on YouTube called "The Showcase Series". I uploaded the video series last week, one video each day, and promoted it to my e-mail list. Check it out below.

If you have a chance, please watch the whole series, all 5 episodes. Like I said, it's only about 10 minutes long. It would definitely tell you what I am about, and you can see what sets me apart compared to many other speakers. If you have some thoughts, I'd definitely would love to hear them.

Of course, there are definitely a lot of ways I can still improve my presentation, but overall, I was happy, because my time in Atlanta provided me some great experience. I got to meet a lot of awesome and some of the most talented future leaders in this world, not to mention, I got to check out all sorts of talented acts of all kinds.

Entertainment acts which are always hard to compete against provided me and the other campus speakers a tremendous handicap to compete with (as many more entertainment acts got booked over any other act), but overall, it was still a great experience. And, so long as I can, I will continue to keep doing this if I have the opportunity and resources.

But, I posted all sorts of updates about this events during the past few weeks in my Facebook, such as photos and videos. So if you're on Facebook, and you're my friend on there, feel free to check it out.

I'm glad I have broken the blogging drought with such a productive post. But, I do plan on doing a few more blogs during the next week or two. I have all sorts of ideas for blog posts that I just came up with, as well as some that I've been meaning to implement in a while. With the NCAA Basketball Tournament coming up, I sure will have a few things to write about. I even have a new idea for a new YouTube channel that I'm thinking about. And... I actually have my "Bucket List" finally down on paper (after talking forever about it).

So, I'm telling you now, that there will be a few reasons to read this blog, so stay tuned. :-)

D4P... PD!!!

John