Work

Lumberock kickoff — how did it land?

*First impression of Ethan / Melkins / Nelson, vibe of the team, any early flags or opportunities.*

The people's names that you listed out here were not correct; however, me, Dawn, Erin, and the CFO Matt were able to join our meeting.

We are all in alignment on how to adjust the various building blocks to make them look more consistent. I tossed out a lot of ideas and they basically just said: "We trust your expertise."

Matt, the CFO, mentioned very casually that when this once launches, they have a lot more work coming down the pipe with their other businesses. Super excited about that.

Jaci session — did the messaging event take shape?

*Is this becoming a real co-hosted workshop, or still in "talk about it" mode? What's the next concrete step?*

We are making this into an event on June 2nd. We're going to host this at Mickey Mellen's co-working space (Fireworks in Marietta). We'll have the space all day and I have confirmed that the Shock Social guys can shoot.

We are going to make this oriented around agency owners (we both have that target demographic in alignment). I need to get with Mickey to see how many agency owners he could invite to this.

The general through-line on this is: "Come get content shot for you. Stay at the co-working space (maybe meet someone), and hang around to do some WORK for yourself on your own business. This day is all about YOU."

The plan for the day

• 9:00 - 11:30 -- Content Day shoots (20 min segments)
• 12:00 - 4:00 -- Workshop
  • 12:00 - 2:00: Jaci's messaging workshop
    • 45 min: education through her worksheet
    • 45 min: people can work on filling everything out without AI
    • 30 min: Pulling people's content up and tearing it down live
  • 2:00 - 4:00: My website workshop
    • 45 min: education through my worksheet
    • 45 min: people can work on filling everything out without AI
    • 30 min: Pulling people's content up and tearing it down live

Things I need to do

• Create a landing page with this (1 hour)
• Create a list of people to invite and ask Jaci to do the same(30 min)
• Figure out how to handle Content Day sign ups

BWC26 — who are you actually hoping to connect with?

*Brighter Web Conference 2026. Of the 26 you invited, name the 2-3 where this conference matters most for the relationship.*

My email to people

In invited 26 people with a message similar to this:

``` So, I got a friend of mine (Mickey Mellen) who is hosting a small conference on October 1st. The goal of the speakers to speak on something tactical and have open Q&A (trying to make the conference more discussion-oriented).

And... as you know, I just wrapped up a social event in New York City. I asked Mickey if we could combine my Field Trip idea with his conference and make it even dope-er.

He said yes. So, this is what we're gonna do:

1. Wednesday, September 30th: Join a select group of attendees for a night of bowling and dinner (all costs are covered by your ticket).

1. Thursday, October 1st: The Brighter Web Conference to learn something new!

1. Friday, October 2nd: Get paired up with 4-6 other select conference attendees and grab some coffee together for some solid small group discussion.

For Wednesday and Friday, you are on the shortlist of people we'd love to have out. I know it's early, but we're going to base the social activity on Wednesday by the amount of folks who can make it and are interested.

If the answer is: "Yes! I'm game to attend!" go ahead and grab a ticket here. Then, just reply and let me know if you are interested in Wednesday's or Friday's events as well. ```

Thoughts

I am very excited about this. It will be the main event that I'm hosting in 2026 now. I feel extraordinarily confident about getting 20+ people to both bowling and the coffee hang out afterward.

Steve Guberman just responded and said he was excited, wants to come, and will be buying his ticket. He even asked if there was a need for a speaker, panelist, panel moderator, or sponsorship. I would like to take him up on this, but we already have all the speakers lined up. Maybe he could pitch in for bowling and "buy the first round".

Personal

OTF with Allie — anything worth remembering?

Did not go today because I wasn't feeling great.

Energy check — where are you ending the day?

*Drained / full / scattered? (Useful signal for tomorrow's planning.)*

Well, I got sick. I must have picked up something from my time in New York. Felt a bit off last night, and today wasn't the best. I got through the day, but it wasn't easy. It's 10PM and I am exhausted.

One Line

One thing you learned today

*Doesn't have to be profound. Could be a person, a dynamic, a tactic.*

Life is fun when you're moving in the right direction with the right people.

Podcast Queue

• Turning a conference into a 3-day experience: BWC26 started as Mickey Mellen's one-day conference. Chris asked "what if we bolt a social event and a coffee hangout onto it?" — and now it's a 3-day thing with bowling Wed, conference Thu, small-group coffees Fri. The principle: take someone else's event and add relational layers around it. You don't have to build everything from scratch.
• The workshop format that writes itself: Jaci + Chris are doing a dual workshop — she teaches messaging (45 min), people work on it (45 min), then live teardowns (30 min). Then Chris does the same for homepage structure. The insight: "Come get content shot for you. Stay and do some WORK on your own business. This day is all about YOU." Education + production + networking in one day.