This is Why We Should Vote

A quick point to ponder…

As a speaker who travels a lot. I found a recent blog that caused me to pay attention. The point that I find interesting is the complete circle. Let me start from the perspective of a speaker who travels and is married. There are many times where I get to go places that I find interesting, either because of the history, or great opportunities to take photos when I am not working or just because I always wanted to go there. Many times there are places that my wife might like to go, but she rarely does and here is why. If I am working all day and then networking at night that doesn’t leave us a lot of opportunity to do something thing together. Often I will take a couple hours somewhere in the week and go see something. If my wife were with me she would be left with only a few options.

• Stay in the hotel and do nothing.
• Come to the event with me and listen to people talk about what she hears me talk about all the time, and yet has no interest in (granted I think she enjoys to watch me speak, but different topic).
• Wander about a strange place by herself or with people she hasn’t met often (she is not as outgoing as I am, but many people aren’t).

Now granted, this is a choice that we make, and well we know the up’s and downs with it. Here is how this comes back to the topic. Recently a speaker (blog | @gregyoung) had an issue with his family at an event. If you want you can read more here. We could talk all about how it could have been handled differently. My point is that many people have seen the post and some have even commented on it. For example a friend and fellow speaker Andy Leonard had this to say.

But this is where I am going to end up going… Look at the comments posted to the blog on Andy’s entry. There is one let’s say 9 or 10 down. It is from an official at the PASS Summit that I often blog about. Not only is the comment a public answer it is a stance, and an apology of sorts. This comment is from someone we as PASS members have elected. It is so easy for people to criticize our officials, yet few of us standup and say thank you. We may even vote and try to get things to be more the way we want it, but that is no guarantee that it is going to happen.

If you think the organization no matter what organization, is doing something that is wrong or could do something better. Make a difference and applaud those changes that you believe are for the better, and encourage changes where you think they should be.

A couple times a year I run into Jason Strate and his wife Sarah. Sarah is often traveling with Jason, she has helped with so many different places not only at the Summit but other events as well. Her work is appreciated and I believe she deserves a huge thank you for the events that she works with. I am sure as an active spouse at the summit she will have a lot of great input. There are so many volunteers that go into making these events that I wanted to make sure I took the time to say thank you…