What an entrepreneur can learn from a literary conference
By Leo Valiquette
Back in March I blogged about the striking similarities between an entrepreneur who is trying to bring technology to market and a writer who is attempting to publish a novel. I referenced the fact that I would soon be attending a literary conference, Ad Astra, as part of my business development and self-improvement efforts.
Ad Astra was in fact this past weekend and it is timely to write about the lessons learned from that experience in light of Alex’s post yesterday about the value of face-to-face contact in the age of social media.
Writers, like engineers, programmers and other creative types, often toil away in seclusion. We think we are staying in touch with the world, and the industries or markets in which we hope to sell our products, by using those ubiquitous social media tools. We can follow and contribute to Twitter streams, discussion threads, post comments on walls and read curated newsfeeds. But this is still akin to drifting over the landscape in a hot air balloon and shouting down at the masses below “how’s it going?” when what you really need to do is drop anchor and go see for yourself.
