★ Momma Would be Proud…

I very rarely write blog posts like this. It’s long and self-serving but maybe someone out there will enjoy reading it.

Ever had a moment, day, week or year that you think, “My Mom would be proud!”? Well, that’s how it was this weekend and I’d thought it was fitting to share it here and also share it with my Mom & Dad. For the record, this weekend wasn’t that much different or more amazing than most of my experiences since moving to San Francisco and pursuing my dream but I rarely stop to smell the roses and reflect in this manner.

I do reflect from a spiritual standpoint every morning as my Father has taught me throughout the last 22 years but the “reflection” on the past few days is a bit self-centered or absorbed than I’d usually share publicly but what the hell. Back in June when I was lucky enough to be first in line for the iPhone 3GS (Blogged here), the press coverage was insane! The past week wasn’t about press coverage but was about meeting new people and having incredible experiences.

The awesome week started on Wednesday when I worked from 6AM-3PM and took the rest of the day off to prepare for 5 days of traveling. At 3, I went to The Creamery with coffee with Lara Long who is starting a social media outreach program for a non-profit. I was as helpful as possible but she had some awesome ideas. We both left the meeting feeling equally as inspired about marketing in this new world of online media. After that, I had coffee with a woman who will be riding with me to Burning Man which will help Gas and Car Rental expenses. Turned out we had tons in common and now I’m really looking forward to that 6 hour drive at the end of August. That evening, Laura and I saw Harry Potter in 3D at IMAX. Very well done and worth seeing if you have an IMAX theatre in the area. Laura and I celebrated a small success which I can’t reveal by going to California Pizza Kitchen which resulted in a $70 bill. San Francisco is so expensive! Hell, our IMAX Tickets were $20 each!

Thursday, it was a 4AM wake up (after going to sleep at midnight) for a flight to LAX for Twiistup. Twiistup is a so-cal event that is geared to startups and technology. It’s a 2-day conference and a huge party. The great thing about Twiistup is the glam & attendees and it’s always been a party that appeals to new media (web 2.0) folks and the celebrities which makes for a great time! I arrived in LA at 7:30AM and spent an hour in traffic getting to Universal Studios. The day conference was great as I heard talks and advice from Chamillionaire, Brian Solis, Micah, Justin Kan and Brooke Burke.

At the party that evening, I realized that in this small micro-culture and one year in to my full time career in tech that people know me, follow my blog and were interested in meeting me. It blew me away when someone was talking to Chamillionaire (Grammy award winning celebrity) and stopped to grab me and say, “You’re Adam Jackson? Dude I follow your blog!”

I always enjoy visiting LA and it was very surprising time and time again that people knew me and were stoked to meet me and it’s a sign that I’m doing something right. There were over 1,000 people at Twiistup and yet I stood out especially given that I was not in SF. This was LA and people still knew me. The cities are very linked virtually but there was some justification in the experience. The evening ended with some awesome new connections and me playing poker with some cool people from all over the world in the Hilton penthouse. When the night was coming to an end (around 2AM and after being up for 22 hours), I looked out the window of a 24 story hotel and smiled because this moment and the road leading up to it wasn’t easy; in fact, it was damn hard but I was here and it was worth appreciating, enjoying and living because I’ll never get this moment back.

The next day (Friday) was quiet. I went to some Twiistup morning sessions and headed out for a 2:50 flight back to SF. Once again, I was in LA but for only 30 hours. Before boarding the plane, I was FriendFeed chatting with Robert Scoble. I told him my flight details and it turned out we were on the same flight. Once in the air, Scoble stood up at the front of the plane and called my name. We chatted for a few minutes during the flight and after the plane landed. Turned out he was with Rocky of Rackspace and I have been trying to form a relationship with them for a while. The chat led to details about my upcoming project and I think we’ve found our web host now which is very exciting.

I left straight from SFO to Sunnyvale / San Jose for iPhoneDevCamp which was located at Yahoo! HQ. I was partly responsible for hooking the organizer, my friend Dom, up with BT (Brian Transeau) to play at iPDC. Brian is a world famous DJ and I’m happy to consider him a friend so helping Dom and team with booking him as a performer was an awesome experience. I arrived in Sunnyvale at 6PM, just enough time to help BT setup and see him perform a 90 minute set. The crowd of 550 iPhone geeks went insane as he spinned classic and new songs.

Afterward, I chilled with BT as some of the die hard fans came up all googly eyed and exclaimed things like, “oooh i have every one of your albums!” Afterward, a Yahoo! employee took Brian and I on a tour of their operations datacenter. I walked through 200 feet of server racks and drooled over the amount of technology in that room. My tech background is in small business & some enterprise server deployments so this was something to make any geek go insane. We were able to take some photos and hear more about Yahoo!’s operations.

Afterward, it was time for dinner so we (Dom, BT, Laura, me and the medialets crew) went to Oola in San Francisco for dinner. Oola catered one of my parties back in 2008 and the food was amazing but this was the first time I had Oola in their restaurant and it was fantastic. Dinner started at 11 and we talked Twitter on a VERY DEEP LEVEL until after 1AM. At one point the topic was about Twitter and how it relates to relationships, sharing and everyone’s style of who to follow and why. The conversation even led to Dom finding the ending to his Book.

i went to sleep at 4AM on Saturday morning because I was behind on emails and to-dos. Saturday, it was up at 8AM for day 2 of iPhoneDevCamp. This was a relaxing day but enabled me to catch up on work from being MIA for 3 days. I did go to some sessions and one of those resulting in finding the company that was the missing link to a side project I’m working on. It’s pretty amazing how things work out but this company will help me achieve exactly what we’ve been missing and I couldn’t be happier! I also watched BT demo his app, Sonifi and reveal some of the future of his app and where it’s going. What Brian is doing will revolutionize the music industry. Sonifi is rebirth of the mix tape, it will decrease piracy and inspire young artists to create, share, learn and appreciate music on a new level. That’s about all I can say and Sonifi is currently only 1.0 and is on the iTunes App Store.

Saturday night was great. Left iPhoneDevCamp at 10PM and took time to catch up with everything. I was finally caught up and reached Inbox Zero for the first time in days but I got an email from a buy in Bangladesh who wanted to put a surveillance camera on AdamsBlock so he can catch the people who keep breaking into his cars and stores. If you’ve never received an email from someone across the world that wants to use your product, it’s an amazing feeling.

Sunday was considered “chill” but still involved tons of work. I took Sunday night to go shopping. I needed new clothes and shoes BADLY. After talking to the Nike employee for a while about my work at Apple and in social networking, they hooked me up with a 50% discount. Then I got 35% off at GAP for no reason. I was using a “green bag” instead of getting one of their plastic bags to hold my new jeans and she was so excited that I was “going green” that I got a discount. Very odd but needless to say I got new clothes and shoes for a lot cheaper than I expected.

Something else unexpected happened at Nike. I was trying on some new shoes and a guy asked if I was Adam Jackson. I said yes and he said, “Hi my name is Mats and I follow you on Twitter.” Of course, I’m not surprised when someone tells me that but it’s usually at a tech event with tech people and the likelihood that someone follows you is high. It turns out Mats was visiting San Francisco from Norway. So a guy from Norway who’s visiting San Francisco is in the Nike store and I happen to be there as well. I’m still freaked out by the experience.

I found this photo drawn of Laura and I by David Newman. He did a fantastic job and it was really cool to see our moment working at iPhoneDevCamp captured in time!

Last night ended with more excitement over email after a celebrity emailed me asking for some tweets about a project they’re working on and maybe forwarding those tweets to some of my friends. I have to say that this weekend was a complete drain, a whirlwind and pretty insane but I have to say that things have changed and that “Momma would be proud…

It’s not luck. I thought it was but now that I’ve lived it and have started getting limited success, I’ve realized it’s a ton of hard work, dedication and studying. I’m not going to say it’s skills or talent because I don’t consider myself talented. I have a long way to go and cherish every bit of success I’ve received so far. Everyone around me is to thank for this because I couldn’t do it alone and my journey has only begun.

Back to work…