a4uexpo competition winner

A huge thankyou to everyone who took the time to enter my competition this week to win a ticket for the a4uexpo worth £395. The quality of the entries was just brilliant, some of you obviously put a lot of thought into them. However, there can be only one winner and I'm pleased to announce it's Chris King for his highly entertaining and cheeky entry (posted below). Well done Chris, you have email. On another note, I'm really gutted but I'm going to have to back out of this year's conference :( It will be the first one I've ever missed and I really am devastated (not least because I've already paid for hotel & train tickets, non refundable of course) not to be speaking, attending the sessions and of course partying with fantastic people. The reason I can't attend is that over the last few months we've been working on all new version of ShareMyPlaylists.com. At the moment it's built on WordPress and BuddyPress but the site is getting so big now that we need to make steps to ensure that we're scaleable. So we've built a brand new custom platform from the ground up with all sourts of cool features and lots of scaleability. The good news is that the site should be ready to go live this week, Tuesday or Wednesday - same time as the Expo. We have lots of work to do before then and lots of activity planned for launch so I reall need to be here in the North East. Backup Plan and Guest Presenter All is not lost though, my fellow director of SMP and founder of the Buy.at affiliate network, Steve Brown will be filling in for me. He has my slides that will talk about how we rocketed SMP from nothing to over a million impressions per month, all on a budget of pretty much nothing. I'm sure he'll be able to share some stories of his own too, from the early Buy.at days. So once again, my apologies for not being able to attend but I'm sure I'll be able to follow all the action on Twitter :) Chris King's winning entry: I would like to attend “Making it Happen: On a Shoe String Budget” as.. Kieron “I’m your biggest fan” & I really want to meet “The Legend of the North” for both Personal & Business reasons. Personal Youth - I’ve heard that you look much younger in person than you do in the photos. That means you must be even more youthful & gorgeous than your online persona portrays. Let’s face it for someone with so much experience I can’t believe how young you look. If we meet at Expo can you tell me the secret to eternal youth & what “metrosexual” products you use. North - You’re from up North & I’ve heard that all the best people working in online are from that neck of the woods. My manor in Saff London is full of geezers, vagabonds & misfits…so I don’t get to meet many of you Northern intellectual types. In fact, I don’t really get North very often at all. If I met you, however, I would make an exception & head North of the Thames to meet you. Music - Interestingly, we share a broad middle ground when it comes to music…House, Hip Hop, Soul, Funk etc. Of more interest, however, is that after that middle ground we break out into radically different directions. I never knew until recently that you used to DJ (as I did) & I’m guessing that through “Share My Playlists” you appreciate diversity. I’m so into diversity (it comes with living in Saff Londond)..so look we can sit down & share music. I will listen to all of your R&B from the past 20 years - as it’s a genre I’m not that familiar with. Your bonus (I think that’s what you would call it..Brucey Bonus even) is to get to listen to all of my Detroit, Chicago & European techno from the mid-90’s. Think “Boing Boom Tschak” 140BPM+ with some really hard & heavy beats. Business 4 x 4’s. I’ve heard you’re a big fan of 4 x 4’s. I’m also a big fan of them as well..in fact I would like to see more of them in London. I mean who needs Boris Bikes, when clearly so many people see the need to have a 4 x 4 in central London. I think we really should have had 4 x 4 hubs. Big, big bays of them in the streets. Pop along to one.. put £50 in a meter & then drive around central London for an hour. I’m thinking like.. incentives such as pay less for less people in the 4 x 4. So if there is only one of you in the 4 x 4 you pay £20…but if there is 4 people £100 & if there is 8 then you pay £1,000. What we really need is an out of town perspective on this & when we meet at Expo we can put a business plan together. Passion. I know in the past on many different occasions you have said that do something you are passionate about in online & there is a good chance you will succeed. I remember having this discussion with you a few years ago. In fact, you were the first inspiration & person I spoke to about what I what my real passion was & what I wanted to do. Life at the time was more than comfortable for me. I had a well paid job, working with great people, in a fantastic industry. It had it’s downs & things that I struggled to cope with, such as a) entertaining business partners/affiliates b) hospitality at Arsenal matches c) watching England play cricket in a box at Lords. It all came back to that word though “passion”. I decided to make a break for my passion. Via two of my other passions India & travelling. Publisher. I’m now back & I’m “on a shoe string budget”. All my cash has gone on travelling the magnificent sub-continent of India & investing in my business. That business passion we discussed a while ago goes live in November. I know a few things about online but would really like that ticket to get a refresher of what’s going on today. As you know “Publishing” is quite a tricky place to be at the moment, especially if you have a slight budget. With my knowledge & what I could learn at Expo, however, I just might be able to make this business “on a shoe string business” a success. OK. So this post is loaded with truth, sarcasm & maybe some humour. Is it “Creative & Entertaining”…I’ll let you be the judge of that. What I'm listening to right now: Daft Punk Samples