"Pleasure To(oth) Meet You"

It was our last day of events at FutureM and we were ready. Although the previous events were AMAZING, we found ourselves sometimes wishing we had done some things differently. For two girls who find themselves more confident than not, we didn't realize how intimidating networking at this level of sophistication could be. So like I said, this time we were ready...

Elevator speech. Check. Outfit. Check. Rule #4 -No glass of wine until our last event. Check. List of things not to bring up (for example: The reason I have a lisp...."I have a fake tooth in my mouth that can be removed - want to see?") Check.

Unfortunately the dreaded tooth removal (read post) had taken place the day before and the result of it was as obvious as a bad hair cut. The fake tooth caused me to have a terribly embarrassing lisp, and a tooth that would occasionally pop out at the most inconvenient times- like when I was introducing myself to Barbara, CGO of Digitas, or while I was eating cheese and crackers at our last networking event. My eyes lit up in horror as I realized I was chewing on a piece of plastic- now toothless- at a black tie event, while Khiara had to cover her mouth from shrieking in laughter.....

So it was a tiny bit of a hassle, but hardly a damper on the day. Khiara, Dave and I were going to make the most of it- and we did. Our first event, Rich Media and Mobile Advertising was held at Digitas. (The building was something out of a movie!) Speakers gave their perspective on the path of Mobile Advertising and the barriers it has been breaking thus far.

 After, we grabbed some lunch and decided to head to Hill Holiday in order to get good seats for the next event, "The Pitch". We waited in the lounge on the 34th floor and envied employees on their lunch breaks - to them, this was just any other standard work day.... We had another chance to connect with some employees of Hill Holiday. Khiara introduced us to both Chris and Lauren who happened to be walking through, and it was yet another chance to practice our networking skills. Finally the Pitch began, and it was by far one of the more exciting events. Five people representing real start-up companies entering the market, had to give their pitch in a matter of eight minutes, followed by a real live panel of judges made up of journalists and agencies.

Boris from CampusLive receiving feedback from the panel

The seminar was then broken up into a networking event, where Khiara and I broke rule #4 and found ourselves sipping on some wine as we mingled. We had a chance to meet with the young entrepreneur of CampusLive, Boris and his lead sales member Melanie. Melanie was nice enough to share her story of how she got to where she was in Boston, and encouraged us to reach out to her.

Leaving Hill Holiday we had some time to kill and headed over to Faneuil Hall. Khiara dragged me into Coach where we almost impulsively bought a bag (the equivalent of half a months of rent in Boston). In return, I dragged her to the Salty Dog across the street to indulge in something more in our range of financial capabilities, Sam Adams on tap.

One drink later we headed back to our final event, Content Curation, where we had the chance to get more insight on start- up companies from a Community Manager herself, Elizabeth.

Although this conference wasn't going to result in a job offer, the insight we now have about the industry is twice as much as we had a week before (and nothing we could have learned in class). Above all, now that I've had a taste, there is nothing stopping me from having anything less.