San Fran: Awesome all around!

Posted In: Running November 4th, 2011 divider 4 Comments »

I’m writing this as I’m on the red-eye back from San Francisco (San Fran-LAX-Chicago-Ottawa). If you follow the blog, you know I was primarily there for #CrowdConf. One word: Awesome!

It was a great experience all around. I had been to San Fran once before when I took a road trip from Vancouver to see some friends in Lake Tahoe after my first Half Ironman in 2006. I had basically only driven through the City, stopped for some tourist-y photos of the Golden Gate Bridge and some food.

This time I feel I got a pretty idea of what San Fran was all about. I got to run a few times and it was glorious. It’s a pretty city with the water, mountains and cool architecture. It also it doesn’t hurt it was in the 20’s and sunny all the time I was there!

The vibe in the city is pretty cool. There is no such thing as normal. One of the traits I found striking and was the fact that people do their thing and don’t apologize for it. Most of the people there would most likely be considered “freaks” in Ottawa. I’m not judging, I’m just stating my humble opinion. It was an awesome experience.

I love a cutting edge conference. Some really cool ideas, concepts and people. Some of the presenters weren’t as polished as you would see with some of the more established subjects but the ideas were fresh and so inspiring. I also made a few connections, even some with the usual six degrees of separation freakiness.

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For folks that would like to know more about crowdsourcing, here is a recent blog post I did for Intersol.ca. Also, there’s a recent NY Times article on crodsourcing and travel. I thought it was fitting…

It’s becoming one of my favourite subjects, so let me know if you’d like to chat about it some more or you would like more info in this space. You know I’m good for it!