On The Road With Roy

Technically we're in the air, but I like alliteration, so whatever. So me and Roy, CEO and founder of Third Degree are traveling. We're joining fellow Third Degree-er, Karla (who got a one-day head start on us) in San Diego for the CUNA Marketing and Business Development Conference, where credit union marketers gather from all over the country to see what's shakin' in their industry.



Day One:

So Wednesday was just all about getting there, which from Oklahoma City to the west coast is sort of an all day affair. We're on a little commuter jet here, and I'm taking our first snapshot of the day. Doesn't Roy look like an impish little evil conscience on my shoulder? Actually, it's quite the oppposite. He is the role model for responsible use of time and resources during business travel.



I'll explain. See my lap. That's my iPod shuffle. I'm listening to Sly and The Family Stone, and gazing out the window, which I could spin as being a creative type who needs time to dream and stretch my imagination and such. But at the moment, I'm wishing I had given in and bought an Us Weekly at the newstand (but I was too embarrassed to read it in front of Roy).



I'll explain further. See Roy's lap. He's reading an inspirational look-at-business-and-life-in-a-totally-truthful-and-life-changing-way book, the kind which is usually based on a metaphor or parable that includes a piece of moving cheese or a purple cow or in this case a young man, an old man and a mountain. It's called "Peaks and Valleys: Making Good and Bad Times Work For You in Work and In Life" by Spencer Johnson M.D. And yes, he's taking notes, like underlining stuff and writing in the margins.



I sound like I'm making fun, but really, it's cool how Roy is always trying to learn something new. He has a huge reading list. We even have a "Roy's Reading List" in our Third Degree brand book. Sometimes when he gets really fired up, he'll order a whole box from Amazon of a certain book and pass them out to everyone in the agency, most recently, Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule The Future." That one makes us creatives feel really good about ourselves.



So now we're finally here in San Diego and about to embark on Day Two of our conference in earnest. Oh, and I did read Roy's book on the second leg of our flight. I even made a highlight or two of my own in yellow marker. Then I zoned out and watched the inflight movie in which Keanu Reeves plays a dehumanized visitor from another planet. Again, not too much of a creative stretch for the imagination. I should have just bought the Us Weekly.