Attending the two Governor's conferences on tourism has been helpful since I'm new to the area. To reach the Wyoming event, we had to drive 6 1/2 hours across Montana and Wyoming--a good sampling of the landscape of both states. I traveled with my new boss, the general manager for Xanterra in Yellowstone, and the director of marketing. My boss already has figured out the key to managing me--we made stops at Dairy Queen both ways for chocolate blizzards. On the drive home listening to the Pennsylvania primary unfold kept us occupied.
My colleague at Grand Teton Lodge Company and I presented "Turning Green Into Greenbacks" at the conference, discussing the economic advantages of going green. We had a good session and participants had a number of suggestions and questions. I think I always learn more from these trainings than I contribute as the ideas really flow from the audience. As I have a training in Jackson Hole next month, my co-presenter has promised me a tour of the town. One of the great parts of this job is working with such talented peers and I learned much from her professional expertise as well.
The keynote speaker provided one of my personal highlights of the conference. Watts Wacker (yes, we had some fun with the name), a noted futurist, spoke about the brave new world we are entering and his engaging vision made for some provocative ideas. His claim that we've left the information age and entered the age of uncertainty and contradictions rang true to this generation X'er. I also liked his theory of home as being not a place anymore but a concept. Another highlight--my cute round bed at the conference hotel!