When I first started my business, every conference that I attended dropped me into an environment of all new people because business was a brand new field for me.  Getting on a plane or in a car to attend a conference near or far with several hundred people that I never met before has made me a bit of a warrior in the area.

In fact, now when I choose a conference, I look for ones that will allow me to meet new people and partake of different information.  What can I say?  I am a renegade.

As I was leaving last week, a colleague asked me if I was ready to head off to a destination that I never went to before with people that I did not know.  My response was ‘Absolutely.’  Don’t get me wrong, I felt some jitters, but mostly I was excited.

You see, going to meet new people at an unknown conference or environment is not only daring and bold, but also savvy.  The business world is a big, wide open space, and with all the virtual opportunities, it is easy to get lost in a sea of avatars.  I love networking online and chatting on Twitter as much as the next person, but those transactions must translate into REAL LIFE for them to really push forward.

It is so easy to hide behind our laptops and tablets with a false sense that we are connecting with lots of people, and often, online connections are amazing.  However, in order to make greater partnerships, referral networks, and lasting relationships, some of these connections must become IRL (In Real Life). Although, we spread our avatars all over the internet, it really is crucial to put an actual face with a name.

Although it is imperative to keep current relationships fresh and ongoing, it is also imperative to make new ones.  My goal for this year was to choose one brand-spanking new conference to attend in comparison to last year when they were all new.  I had to reserve some time and money to attend one or two that I loved from last year in order to both pay it forward and stay in touch IRL with contacts.

Last week was the NEW one.  The conference where I knew nobody and had no idea what to expect.  What started out as a nerve wracking experience proved to be both fruitful and fun.

Of course, I had my survival tips ready.

(Attending a New) Conference Survival Tactics:

1. Smile.  Look happy.  Whether you are nervous, scared or feel like you are going to be sick, put a happy face on because it makes you way more approachable.
2. Forget Avatars. You see that picture by my name here?  Guarantee you that in person, I look nothing like it.  Don’t memorize avatars and think you will recognize anyone.
3. Don’t Prequalify. Leave judgement at home.  The most unassuming person may be your best contact or the one person that you are just dying meet, may prove to be a dud.  In other words, meet and greet as many people as you can!  Move around the room, change seats or tables, and introduce yourself to as many people as possible.
4. Be ready to conduct business. Really.  Bring extra business cards, notepads, pens, laptop/tablets/chargers, and even any legal documents as in non-disclosures if they apply.
5. Takes notes. After meeting someone, make a few notes on their card or in a  notebook so you are prepared for a little conversation when following up.

Yes, you must follow up with the contacts that you meet and make an effort to move the relationship forward.

I would love to hear about your adventures of heading to conferences…

To read more about the simple, yet practical advice I heard on work life balance, read here.

Rachel

I’ve been working with the creators of StartUpNation since 2001 when I was hired to shoot Rich Sloan doing yoga on the conference room table in the Birmingham Michigan office of the up and coming StartUpNation.  I was recently offered the opportunity to blog about photography if I thought I could contribute to entrepreneurs and start ups. I think I can so I’ll give it a shot.  I’ll be talking about all things photography, from how to do a shoot in the office, to what’s the best stock agency for what your needs are, to rights and usage contracts.  I’ll be answering questions about any thing relating to the business of photography and photography in your business. If I don’t know the answers I’ll look to the vast knowledge base of my peers and will share what I learn with you, so post your questions and comments about you’re photographic quandaries here, and I’ll help you along the image driven super highway of successful businesses.

I should tell you a bit about me.
I began my career as a photographer early in life.  My brother had a darkroom in a closet at our house when I was a sixth grader.  It didn’t take long for my teachers at school to see an opportunity to recruit the next news paper and yearbook photographer.  That’s when I learned that you can have fun and provide a needed service at the same time.  I could get credits for graduation if I work on the year book and news paper staff!  Life was good.  Then one day I was handed a press pass to cover the cheerleaders for a story for the news paper, that was all the motivation I ever needed to pursue my career.  When I was a senior in High School I was introduced to an advertising photographer in my home town of Detroit named Ameen Howrani.  He let me watch him work one day, he was shooting a news crew for the local ABC affiliate.  It was very glamorous, they had food there!  I was face to face with the local anchor man!  That’s when I decided that advertising was where it’s at.  Fast forward 25 years.  I have photographed some really great people, some incredibly beautiful places, and some of the most interesting stuff you’ll ever see.  I picked up a few professional sports teams along the way as well.  Namely the Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Tigers, Detroit Lions, and currently Tampa Bay Ray’s as well as the NHL, NFL, MLB and other editorial venues related to sports. I’ve had unprecedented access to closed door behind the scenes events in the NFL, NHL, and MLB to name just a few. I was given the opportunity to shoot a book for the Detroit Red Wings called “48 Hours with the Detroit Red Wings”. Its a chronological documentation of what happens in forty eight hours in the world of the Red Wings Hockey team.  I was able to travel with the team to photograph players, coaches, and staff. We took two days to shoot the book so we could show the travel aspect of how the team lives on the road (and above the clouds).  During that shoot I was given access to coaches meetings that had never been photographed before.  One of the best experiences I had with the Red  Wings was Flying on the team jet to Washington DC to the White House to meet President George W Bush.   I was given an assignment by the Detroit Tigers Baseball team to shoot an eighteen page photo essay of Tiger Stadium during the final home stand ever to be played there.  The parting shot was Al Kaline in his nineteen sixty eight world series uniform (it still fit), pondering his days playing in that historic stadium.  The cover shot was of the stadium from the corner of Michigan and Trumble on a Friday night with fireworks lighting the sky.  I was able to get images never before captured, such as the neon Tiger Stadium sign from the roof of the press elevator.  I’m currently team photographer for the Tampa Bay Ray’s Baseball team, and have a nice client list of local and national companies and agencies as well.  I live in the St Petersburg area of Florida where I’ve lived for the past six years.  Before that I lived mostly in the suburbs of Detroit with a few years in New York city.  Please feel free to see some of the photographs I mention here at www.kovich.com

Employees want to do a good job. And what the boss often needs to do is get out of the way and let them perform. Of course, when I became a business owner, I fell prey to the kind of thinking that trips up so many entrepreneurs: You have to work endless hours, you have to micromanage every aspect of the business, you have to make every decision. Ack!

I don’t know if my businesses would have survived if I hadn’t come up with what I call Go Theory. (”Go” as in “just go away”.) Go Theory is not about where you go or what you do while you go away from the office. Go Theory is all about what you don’t do:

• Don’t send your employees lots of little reminders by email.
• Don’t keep checking your smart phone.
• Don’t miss the spectacular view or the interesting presentation or the quality time with friends because you were stressing out about what might be going on back at the office.

Instead, enjoy your time away. Because you’ve got great people taking care of the business while you’re gone. If that last sentence just sent a chill up your spine (“But…no one can possibly take care of my business except me!”), read on.

The first element of Go theory, its absolute essence, is hiring great people to work in your business:

• Fire quick and hire slow. Invest the time and money required to make the best choices. I don’t rely on just myself to spot the right person — I make sure that at least two other people whose opinions I respect interview the candidates.
• Hire smart. I hire people who are smarter than me.
• Pick people with a track record for doing their tasks and accomplishing their goals. You don’t want to deal with excuses.

The second element of Go theory involves what you do with those great employees once you have them:

• Give people a great place to work, including real benefits.
• Trust them to handle problems and give them room to succeed or fail.
• Get in the habit of throwing issues back to employees — otherwise, you’ll be chained to your business 24/7.
• Make your business a vibrant and healthy system and you’ll find that employees work better when you’re gone.

The third element of Go theory is at once the easiest — and the hardest:

• Give employees clear directions or goals, and leave them alone to do their jobs. A quick check-in early in the project to make sure they are on track is OK, but then…go away!

The idea is for you to work on your business instead of in your business. This forces you and your staff to create good systems that can run without you. As the CEO, you want to be useless in the day-to-day business activities so you can be proactive and reactive to markets and opportunities. Keep in mind that what puts your business ahead of the competition is not logging lots of hours at the office — it’s creativity. Ask yourself: How can you be creative if you’re spending all your time making sales calls?

Go Theory provides a lot of rewards, including a “real life” for the CEO and a stronger, healthier bottom line for the company. I find that in my absence my business thrives. Projects move forward, problems get solved, and new ideas emerge. All this — just because I learned to get out of the way and work from a beachside cafe two hours a day.

A new project by California eco-urban design firm LJ Urban aims to make giving more concrete—quite literally—by matching its sales of homes domestically with funds to build homes in the impoverished African nation of Burkina Faso.

Urban has designed a new eco-urban community of 35 LEED ND Certified homes in the urban core of Sacramento, its home town. The community is suggestively named Good, and for each home within it that gets sold, LJ Urban has committed to funding the complete training of a West African mason to build sustainable homes for families in Burkina Faso. By partnering with the Association La Voûte Nubienne (AVN), which has already trained about 60 local masons to build durable homes out of earth bricks and mortar, LJ Urban aims to go beyond just providing homes to impart enduring skills and jobs to the local community. Taking the notion a step further, LJ Urban has also opted to skip the expensive marketing campaign to promote its Good community, and to use that money to train more African masons instead. So, for every 100,000 people who visit LJ Urban’s new, dedicated website by July 1st, the company will fund the complete training of another local Burkina Faso mason—up to 20 in all through this viral approach.

The Good project was inspired by Toms Shoes, a project that donates a pair of shoes for every one it sells. “[That] approach captivated us because it broke through the ‘charity fatigue’ all of us have felt at one time or another,” LJ Urban’s team explains. “The question then became: ‘What if we could do something like that with our houses?’…” The project is also reminiscent of One Laptop Per Child’s (OLPC’s) “Give One Get One” campaign last year through which consumers could donate a laptop and get one for their own use at the same time.

The site is one of the experiments I like to refer to as the “inverted news paper” - citizen journalism at its most raw. Every day, a wealth of local information is created — officials inspect restaurants, journalists cover fires and Web users post photographs — but who has time to sort through all of that? EveryBlock aims to collect all of the news and civic goings-on that have happened recently in your city, and make it simple for you to keep track of news in particular areas. They’re a geographic filter — a “news feed” for your neighborhood, or, yes, even your block.

If your business is local and serving the public, check out how you are being discussed in your communuty.

Traditionally, companies that “do good” are generally non profits, and when people find out that a traditional small business is also “doing good” they feel like somehow the company must be taking advantage of the community it is serving if it is also turning a profit. I do not believe this to be the case and formed my consulting company based on the premise that small businesses would contribute to a triple bottom line if they knew where to find it.

Creative Capitalism has been around for a while. Formerly known as social entrepreneurism, it is a concept newly labeled by Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and other market leaders and the premise is that “we should attempt to stretch the reach of market forces so that more companies can benefit from doing work that makes more people better off.” The book is available on Amazon (unsure of where the profits go). So far, it’s a pretty foreign concept to most bottom-line discussions. Having spent time reviewing the giving trends of big tycoons in the past (land trusts, libraries, parks), there is something different about the timing of this idea: the generation that is receiving it.  

The 30 and 20-somethings have grown disillusioned with where the 1980s consumption and 1990s holding on behavior have gotten us. Those that have the means to get out and travel, see the disparity in the world, come back and want to do something about it. With technology to reflect back their experiences they are twittering, facebooking, myspacing and texting what they are seeing to one another – and a small group are doing something about it.

Why profile TOMS?

Two reasons: 1) Anyone who has seen true the true spirit of leadership in play knows it is the eagerness to lose oneself in the group for the good of the group. This quality is best exemplified in Blake Mycoskie for the simple reason: that is where the heart of his business began. One for One, from day One. 2) Any size business should learn that a social model (something that takes into account the community in which it survives) thrives 10-fold compared to businesses that have tunnel-vision on bottom line sales. There is something to be said for karma.

About the Company

TOMS Shoes promises to give to children in need a pair of shoes for each pair it sells. The company  has given over 140,000 pairs of shoes and expects to give more than 300,000 pairs this year.

TOMS Shoes launched in Venice, California and sold 10,000 pairs during the first year in business. As a result, Blake returned to Argentina in October of 2006 with family and friends and unveiled the second phase of his business plan: the Shoe Drop Tour. To meet demand, TOMS now offers Shoe Drop Tours throughout diverse regions of Argentina. These are volunteer opportunities where TOMS Shoes supporters hand-deliver shoes to children. Since its beginning, TOMS has given over 140,000 shoes to children in need around the world. 

Here is a bit of my discussion with Blake:

Why shoes?
BLAKE: Walking is the primary mode of transportation in developing countries. Children walk miles just to get food and water, to make their way to school, or to reach medical help. In some communities, children can’t even attend school unless they have proper footwear. And the leading plague in these countries is soil-transmitted parasites. Shoes are such a simple answer to these problems children face every day.

See TOMS educational videos: One Day Without Shoes and Why Ethiopia (warning on the second video for graphic images)

Technology is required in today’s job market. Is TOMS Shoes looking to attract a blended workforce, or does the average age of the workers in the company reflect a standard .com?
BLAKE: For the first few years, our staff reflected the young, evolving company that we were. But as we grow, TOMS is definitely looking to attract a diverse workforce. We’ve become much more aware of our needs, and therefore able to hire individuals with specific skill sets, relevant experience, and worthy knowledge. I am still the CEO and Chief Shoe Giver, and I continue to immerse myself in TOMS because it’s my passion. I have creative ideas and feverish curiosity, and my team is receptive to that. But I definitely have trust in those who are facilitating the every day, drafting direction, and establishing strategies.

Your company is for-profit. What sort of profit sharing model exists for the employees and how did you arrive at the decision to not do a nonprofit?
BLAKE: My earnings from other businesses I had started before TOMS are what kept us afloat in the earlier days- TOMS was not funded by an outside 3rd party. I never had to present a business plan or get approval, I just had trust in myself and the One for One concept. Of course people laughed when I said TOMS would give a pair of shoes away for every pair we sold, but now TOMS is proving One for One as a viable business model. Our customers have been amazing supporters since day 1.

I created TOMS as a for-profit business to ensure a sustainable way of giving. We’re able to give shoes weekly in Ethiopia, and monthly in Argentina. I also wanted to prove that you can build giving into your business model from day one and still be profitable. We get a lot of inquiries from all types of organizations wanting to get involved with TOMS in one way or another. It’s a blessing, really, but we have to be careful in these first critical years of building our brand.

You are an example of an individual whose actions will help define the generation they are in. Your generation is described as both the “me generation” and the “giving generation.” How do you think your generation should be characterized?
BLAKE: This generation is one that thrives off of action. We don’t dream about change, we make it happen. We don’t imagine a way to incorporate giving in to our daily lives- we do it. TOMS has so many young supporters who are passionate about the One for One movement, and who share the story and inspire others every day they wear their TOMS. Seeing them support this business model is proof that this generation is ready and able to create a better tomorrow.

People connect with TOMS beyond just owning another pair of shoes. There’s something more every time you slip on a pair, every time you share the story, every time you suggest a pair of TOMS as a gift because no matter what brought you to purchasing a pair of TOMS, you are making an impact on a child’s life. Will there be saturation of cause-based marketing? Most likely, but TOMS has paved the way for other entrepreneurs to incorporate giving in to their businesses.

The One for One mission is sticking with this generation, and causing a new way of thinking. We grew up with parents who were taking those first small steps, and now we are just charging full speed ahead towards a better tomorrow. We have to. One for One is proving that you can bring closure to an issue by incorporating a conscious decision in to the actions you already take- whether its as a consumer purchasing a product, or a business looking for ways to inspire a better tomorrow. It makes consumerism and philanthropy come together full circle.

Carpe Diem!

Thought you folks would benefit from this audio-visual snapshot of what’s happened over the past two hundred years in the world and why it’s so seismic relative to the history/future of humankind and the planet we inhabit. While this isn’t specifically about business, it is definitely a wake-up call about China as a peer player of the U.S., among many other things, including life span (and health) disparity.

Below are the emailed questions I received from the producers in advance of my most recent appearance. They take this and turn it into what’s called a “rundown”, which is essentially an outline of the show with talking points, many of which end up on the teleprompter. I figured the process, as well as the actual advice, might be illuminating for you. Enjoy!
—

Financial:

What are the biggest financial mistakes that SBOs make?

·         Not prioritizing the spending

·         Not keeping track of available cash this month and in the months and year ahead

·         Forgetting that it’s easier to raise money when you don’t need it

·         Buying new instead of “used”.

·         Ignoring what I call the “2X Factor” which makes the point that things usually take twice as long and cost twice as much than you expect

·         Buying too much inventory or spending too much on advertising without testing out what works best

·         Not paying attention to building business credit

·         Accumulating “fixed costs” instead of “variable costs” which are far more flexible to changing status of the business

·         Receiving investment and not ensuring that there’s a unified plan and timeframe. This is called, “alignment of interests,” and is critical to create.

What resources are there for people when they are in a hole?

·         there are consultants who will help you build up your credit, personal and business

·         utilize an accountant. Don’t just check in at tax time – make it a quarterly check-in.

·         PR firms are helpful in managing any external-facing issues

Should they use their credit cards?

·         Credit cards are a last-resort solution to financial problems. More often than not, they simply dig a deeper hole for you.

Should they go to a bank for a loan?

·         Going to the bank for a loan BEFORE crises occur is always smarter.

Where do you turn when you can’t get a loan?

·         Your rich uncle

Friends and family? Pitfalls / pros?

·         Friends and family are a great way to go as long as you treat any loan or investment professionally and set expectations and communicate regularly and thoroughly about status of their investment

FYI, one of the most common laments we hear on our radio show is, “how do I get a loan if I don’t have good credit?” That’s a huge impediment and reality out there…

Legal:

What are the biggest legal pitfalls that SBOs fall into?

·         Not being protected or insulated from a lawsuit – this is easily achievable by moving from “sole proprietorship” to “LLC” or “S Corp.”

·         Ideas are copied by someone else b/c the ideas, known as “intellectual property” weren’t protected or enforced properly.

·         Non-compete clauses are not entered into with a partner or key employee at the time of engagement and when they depart they use their experience with you to become a competitor. They can poach clients/customers, too.

·         Not having people sign a Confidentiality Agreement whenever possible

·         Making representations that are too grand and unrealistic with investors, which can lead to shareholder hostility and worse

How important is an attorney to a small business?

·         Very. That’s why attorneys are so damn wealthy – they’re needed!

If a SBO finds themselves in a legal matter are there any resources they can go to for help?

·         Attorney is first stop. If no attorney, call around people who you trust and ask for a referral.

·         Internet is valuable but can be hit/miss in terms of reliable information

·         If a legal issue arises, I recommend making that your leading priority until you’re certain that it’s not a significant threat. Left untended to, a legal situation can drown you. This is one area where you always want to be extremely vigilant.

Insurance

What are the biggest insurance mistakes SBOs make?

·         Not getting coverage, especially basic liability coverage

·         For investors, it’s effective to indicate to them that you’ll have “Key Man” insurance. Helps them manage their “downside” in the event that you’re incapacitated.

·         Not getting coverage for a home-based business b/c you assume your homeowner’s insurance covers all your stuff.

·         Skimping on healthcare coverage. When a medical situation arises, don’t let it eat your finances. As pricey as it is, it’s better to bear the burden of healthcare costs over a longhaul than it is to get slammed all at once.

What is the bare minimum that a SBO needs?

·         Healthcare

·         Liability coverage

·         Short-term/long-term disability

Natural Disaster

Obviously, these are unforeseen, but how can SBOs prepare for them?

·         Have an emergency procedure in place for you, your team and customers who may be present/impacted.

·         Establish communication and rendez vous points

·         Sounds crazy, but each year thousands of people get blind-sided. You always think, it happens to other people, not me… but alas…

What resources are there for disasters?

·         www.Ready.gov – they provide both business and personal disaster planning advice and materials

Management / Employee

What are the biggest management / employee problems?

·         Most employee problems result from poor selection and management

·         Theft of intellectual property

·         Sharing of proprietary information

·         Stealing

·         Working under influence of drugs

·         Employee-employee discord

How do you handle a major employee crisis?

·         If there’s mutiny on the bounty or one bad apple, individual meetings complemented with group meetings are effective. Anytime something goes awry, it can be a great learning opportunity for everyone else as long as embarrassment is avoided.

·         If the employee has an emergency (is that what you mean?!), treat them like a family member.

It may have taken the shape of a loss of data, or a short-fall in needed cash. Perhaps it was a lawsuit or a personal medical situation. Who knows - it could’ve been an unexpected tax hit or maybe even a key customer pulling back from a large order that you’d considered “in the bag”.

We had our own crisis last month when this website was attacked and disrupted by a “hacker-bot”, a new term for me and one I’ll always wince at when I hear it in techie conversations.

This coming week I’m going back on CNBC’s The Big Idea to discuss how to deal with crises like those mentioned above. I’m wondering if any among you would like to be featured on the program to ask your burning question about how to deal with a crisis you’re experiencing. The show will air next week on Tuesday, barring any pre-emption.

So, anyone dealing with a crisis at their business? Been through one recently and want to avoid similar situations in the future? Please share your comments below and/or volunteer to be considered for the show by satellite uplink from your town’s local TV station.

If preferred, as an alternative, you can use this link to contact me, too.

Rich

Alas,  there is a part 3.

Having not been able to rent a car,  I could not take up the Air Trans offer of 2 free tickets per 1 seat for my Atlanta to Charlotte flight.  A bummer for sure, but hey, the downside is I got to be home in 45 minutes.

It had been a 3 hour layover in Atlanta,  and I was more than anxious to get on that plane and…go back to sleep.  I’d been up since 4:45 am after all.   So they start calling out the zones for boarding, I sprint on to the plane, take my seat, pull out the sunglasses, pop out the iphone, fire up James Taylors “New Moon Shine”, and almost immediately fall into a deep sleep.

My own snoring woke me up some time later.  You ever done that?  It’s like you slowly become aware of this distant, horrible, grumbly sound.  Your first thought is “boy that sound is awful….oh crap it’s me!”. My head jerks down and my eyes fly open.  I’m a bit disoriented as I look out the window, so I turn to the guy next to me:

“Wow, we’ve landed already.  That sure was a short 45 minutes.”

Blank stare.

“Well, we actually haven’t taken off yet,” he replies after a few seconds.

“Hrmmm?” I reply.

“We haven’t taken off yet.  The Atlanta airport is shut down because of this storm and we’re just sitting here,” he says.  I do suddenly actually notice the storm - fierce wind is whipping paper around outside, and lightning flashes are going off like paparazzi catching Britney with no panties on.

It had been 1 hour and 15 minutes ago that I’d boarded the plane.

We sat there for another 30 minutes - please remember that this is a 45 minute flight, door to door - before we finally took off.  I managed to drift off to sleep again, and was jolted awake by the plane touching down in Charlotte.

I was home!  It was 8:15 pm - I had woken up at 4:45 a.m. pst - that’s 12 hours of travel.  I couldn’t wait to see my wife and hug….the…..kids…..

My thoughts trailed off as I looked out of the window.  We were passing a giant plane graveyard of sorts - there were dozens of large and small planes littered about, just sitting there.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.  Unfortunately, due to the bad weather in Charlotte, it’s backed things up here as well, and we’ve got a plane sitting at our gate.  We’ve got to wait for it to back out of there so we can dock.  Could be a while.”

I should have known better than to think that this trip was going to go quietly.

30 minutes later, Charlotte was hit with a really big thunderstorm.  Lightning was striking the ground in the not-so-far-off distance, and it was pouring buckets of rain that was almost moving sideways in the strong wind.  Not good.

“Me again,” said the captain. “Well folks,  Charlotte has now grounded all the planes due to the weather, and now we’ve got a traffic jam of planes between us and the gate, and we aren’t going to be able to pull up to the gate until all these planes are cleared for takeoff and are out of our way.  Could be a while.”

For added emphasis, we now spotted a medium sized group of fire trucks and ambulances, lights blazing, headed to the center of our little plane graveyard.  They were no doubt there to chase down all the mothers and fathers of small children who were probably very soon going to see if they could squeeze out of their little windows and make a run for it.

I am very happy to report that, at 10:30,  2 hours and 15 minutes after landing, the weather had cleared, the planes were taking off, and our plane pulled up to the gate. 

As a very lovely parting shot to my trip back,  the Air Trans lost and found luggage office was closed for the night.  My bag, which easily made it here on ITS scheduled flights yesterday, will just have to wait.

-Kevin

EPILOGUE

As I sit here in my kitchen eating a very wonderful dinner of cereal, 16 hours after waking up this morning to fly home, a few thoughts hit me.   The first is that I hope you enjoyed my misery - somebody has to benefit from this!

The second thought is this: Our airport security is still not so secure, is it?   Let’s face the facts here.  1) I was allowed into an airport without a federal id on the outbound trip.  2)  I was NOT allowed back in immediately coming back and I missed the plane,  but my BAG made it without me.  How many red flags should that raise?  All of them?  3)  Airport security is wildly inconsistant.   The guy who wouldn’t let me back in the Airport in Seattle, Steve-O, actually wins here because he probably followed proper procedure.  But the gal in Charlotte who let me in to the airport didn’t, and the guy this morning didn’t either.

And people, I LOOK like a terrorist.   I’m a male with dark skin and a scraggly beard.  I’m not trying to be insensitive here - I’m just comparing my features to all the pictures we’ve seen of actual terrorists.  I’ve been yanked out of every airport line since 9/11 for extra screening (which I don’t mind at all).  I had an entire wallet of ID that could have easily been forged.

Not good, America,  not good.

-Kevin

kevin@inflatablemadness.com

http://inflatablemadnessdvd.com

http://buybackmadness.com

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