Across a few different conferences I've met some folks face-to-face that impressed me. Here's a shout out to some of these folks... I hope our paths cross again soon.
Mark A. Smith is the founder of Mikonoclast, LLC. Mark's idea is all about connecting people through personal icons or Mikons that you can create, share, wear, etc. Look for Mikons at SXSW this year.
Denise Wilton is the lead designer for Moo, a UK-based business that prints mini business/contact cards from your Flickr photos. I'm about to order some myself.
Jake McKee and I have been online friends for a long time and finally met in person, so he makes the list. He's the Lead Samurai at Big in Japan and an all-around great guy.
Steven Reading is a co-founder of Dogster/Catster, social networking for pets. I enjoyed meeting he and Ted Rheingold at Community Next - a great example of how a good idea and passion can turn into a successful business.
Jefferey Keefer has been a Common Craft reader for a long while it was great to meet him in Vancouver, far from his New York City home and work at NYU. Jeffrey blogs at SilenceandVoice. Check it out: he sat next to Evander Holyfield on the flight home from Northern Voice.
Ian MacKenzie is a brother in travel. I met him after my talk at Northern Voice and we hung out throughout the event. He and his wife have put together a couple of travel community sites: TravelBlogger.net and BraveNewTraveler.com.
Randy Stewart of Stewtopia is a fellow Seattleite, blogger and someone with which I hope to hang out here in Seattle.
John Bollwitt is a podcaster in Vancouver at Radiozoom.net. He reminds me a lot of Chris Pirillo and they are both from Iowa. Separated at birth? I doubt it. We had a great time over lunch.
Brad Gibson is another Canadian podcaster at CurrentThinkingRadio.com. Brad struck me as a very thoughtful and interesting guy. We spent a little time together talking about travel and racing in the presence of a microphone.
Bryan Zug is another Seattle-based blogger and e-learning consultant/developer at Flathatter and a person that I'd like to know more. He blogs at eLearning Skinny.
Warwick Patterson is Canadian photographer, video producer and adventure seeker. He's into things like motorcycle rally racing and may be going to Mongolia sometime soon to video and photograph his participation in a motocycle rally for Formula Photographic. Very cool. He's also one of the folks behind This City Rocks.
Todd Smith and Stephanie Co are also our brothers and sisters in travel. They are about to take an extended trip to Asia that will focus on "Portraits of Asia," a study of culture, cuisine, and commodity. Check out their blog here.
Chris Heuer is a person that I've heard about since our return, but hadn't met. I was impressed with Chris' wamth and thoughtfulness. He seems to be a great guys with a lot of ideas. Check out Social Media Club and Brain Jams.
Eric Eggertson of Mutually Inclusive PR is someone whom I've wanted to meet for years now. We have been communicating via blog comments and flickr photos for a long time. It was great to meet him and I wish we had more time to connect.
Anil Dash of Six Apart keynoted the Northern Voice conference and I had the chance to hang out with him for a while. I find Anil to be very accomplished, insightful and smart, but more than that, one of the most quick-witted people I've met.
Michael Klassen of Thinking Cap is someone that I enjoyed connecting with years ago and was happy to see again at Northern Voice.
I'm sure that as soon as I click "publish" my brain will be filled with all the folks I should have mentioned. It's not personal.