Posts Tagged ‘group’
AIG Now Caught on the Taxpayers Dime . . . Again
Next time the federal government bails out the big business morons, they really need to attach some strings and some consequences. It is absolutely ridiculous what the ABC15 reporters found. At first glance, the 2008 Asset Management Conference held this week at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort in Phoenix looked like a normal conference. However, the people who went to it were less than ordinary. American International Group made efforts to disguise the conference, and there were no AIG logos or signs anywhere on the property (they were a $343,000 sponsor of the event which was not allowed under the bailout rules). The ABC15 Investigators went undercover at the resort and observed AIG executives having poolside meetings while drinking coffee and working out at the spa while other attendees were in conference rooms for seminars. The executives were also seen at after parties drinking it up and having AIG pick up the tab (ie the taxpayers). I wonder what else we picked up the tab for: taxi trips, travel insurance, room service? The hotel staff were told they weren’t even allowed to say AIG.
This, of course, comes on the heels of them getting another $40 million (or is it billion?) of taxpayer money to bail them out. Yeah, I think we need to take the blank check away. How about you? Obviously, AIG doesn’t get it.
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Izeafest – Day 2
We learned on Day 1 that we had to get there bright and early to make sure that we got a plugin for our laptops. Without that, day one didn’t have a lot of blogging or twittering going on. Well, at least not from me. Day 2 started with a keynote speech from Merlin Mann. I have to say that it was one of the best keynote speeches I have ever heard. His speech was about “don’t be a dick”. Everything he said was true. He even asked the audience to disagree with what he said, but no one did, because he was right.
The next panel was Social Network and included Michael Brito, Sean Bonner, Etan Horowitz, and Lena West. This was another panel that really wasted my time. First, we had Lena West stating that she was too busy to actually do it herself. My first question was then why are you on this panel? Then she managed to offend half the room (google: Lena West and mommybloggers to find out why. Trust me, there was no
airbrush do over. The more she tried to explain herself, the worse it got). They pretty much said to use Twitter and Facebook. Umm, yeah, knew that already. Now, tell me how to use them to help me, because I really don’t get Facebook at all. There are also dozens of social networking sites out there — and nobody even mentioned them.
Next, there was Loren Feldman. I love Loren Feldman. He speaks his mind, and he makes awesome videos! It was almost breathtaking to hear what equipment he uses. We learned that you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to do good videos on your blog.
Next, we had the plug-in panel with Loren Baker, Jonathan Dingman, and Erik Hersman. This was definitely cool, because I learned I am using a lot of the wordpress plugins that I should be!
Last, there was the Blog Design Makeover Panel with Scott Allen,Matt Blancarte, and Christopher Schmitt. My only complaint with this is that they were very rushed. Also, the designs were nice, but way out of the price range of us normal bloggers.
In a nutshell, that was the conference. I have one more post about the IzeaHunt that we did, and that will pretty much summarize the conference. Would I go again? I’ll be honest — I don’t know. It is a lot of money. Did I learn things? Yes. However, does any of it help me to monetize? Not really. I really thing they need to have breakout sessions, and you can pick and choose what sessions to go to. That way, you can reach the middle ground bloggers and the beginning bloggers. What I found lacking was that none of the big name big money bloggers really told us how to get from middle group to up on top. Telling me what you are doing now really doesn’t help me all that much.
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