Shannon

I heard great things about the conference last year from folks whom I trust and admire - and I'm trying to invest in myself, my career and my consulting work. Plus I love Portland and have friends there.

Gaming. I'm passionate about the positive impact old-school (as in non-digital) games have had on my life - and on the lessons from the gaming industry, the comics industry and other niche IP driven businesses have as leading indicators for where every business globally is heading.

Seeing patterns and trends years, sometimes decades ahead of other people - and in the short term asking the right (and deep) questions that often take others weeks or months, if ever, to get at. I see patterns and relationships between disparate ideas, businesses and industries. I collect business models and examples and almost always have suggestions for things that offer models to study and apply to whatever the problem in whatever the industry.