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This is my second consecutive year in attending the Inc. 5000 Conference, and I’m absolutely honest when saying it is the best conference of the year for the following 6 reasons: entrepreneurial energy, dynamic and entertaining speakers, approachability and access to those speakers, strategic and contrarian content, networking with other entrepreneurs from around the country, and Inc. staff is very cool and real.

This blog post is all about who I met and why I’m so encouraged about the future of our country’s industry leaders and innovation. Optimism is the new cynicism and we can’t fixate on the nation’s financial industry woes when we have our own companies to grow, innovative products to build, and value creation waiting to happen.  Who I met:

1. Vance Patterson is a stud. I met him last year at this conference - he and I were garnering a bit of attention with our outfits at the Inc. 500 Awards, black-tie event - he was wearing a dapper top hat, tux, and a staff w/ crystal and blue LED light, and I had my late grandfather’s Buchanan-plaid (bright yellow, orange, red) vest and bow-tie on.  He and his wife, Mary Joe, carried themselves with cool confidence and engaged in great conversation throughout this year’s award dinner.  Of the 6-7 businesses he’s involved in, Vance spends most of his time running an industrial fan company called Patterson Fan Company.  We discussed what we love doing (he and Mary Joe ride their Harley Davidson on long trips), family business issues and my younger perspective on what his kids are probably thinking, employee recruiting and retention, politics, and the conference itself.

2.  Charles Wu from Chicago is one of these whiz kids who is incredibly technically capable and can strike up a conversation with anyone. Charles started his $20 million IT company, CTI Connect, just 8 years ago in college - he makes it look easy - bastard (I mean that in a respectful way, of course).

3. Kevin Pryzbocki, Anue Systems founder, and I had an in-depth conversation about the importance of place (Austin vs. Portland vs. San Fran) after 4 or 5 cocktails at an evening function where Inc. 5000 entrepreneurs took over the entire Smithsonian Center for American Art and Portraiture.

4. Richard Brasser, professional golfer turned entrepreneur with his company Targeted Group, and I struck up a very cool conversation on what he does and I connected him with a very close college buddy of mine who is the golf coach for a state champion high school golf team.

5. Sharon McLoone of WashingtonPost.com, small business journalist, and I traded stories about our backgrounds. 

6. Kevin Sproles, founder of Volusion, 25 years old, soft-spoken — his e-commerce software company is blowing the doors down with number of customers and revenue. He also started in college.  (A little advice after the fact to Kevin and Charles - next time, enjoy the full irresponsibility of your college years. Once it hits your lips, it feels so good).

7. Dave Conklin and his partners at ProspectMX were the most outgoing, appreciative, and coolest Pennsylvania entrepreneurs at the show.  Dave did an amazing blog post on his Inc. 500 experience >>

8. Morgan First - she is an upandcoming entrepreneur speaker and publisher - loved her energy and intelligence - great street smarts.

9. Dave Dreiling, founder/CEO of GTM Sportswear, hooked me and all other attendees up w/ a killer Inc. 5000 atheletic shirt.  I met him last year - very personable and savvy - runs 640 employee company and doesn’t seem stressed at all.

10. Breakout speakers Tom Szaky, founder/CEO of TerraCycle, and Norm Brodsky, founder of CitiStorage and Inc. Magazine columnist, are my 2 favorite entrepreneurs/speakers who owned the conference last year and this year in terms of relevant content, advice, strategy, and perspective to me personally.  This year, I got to talk to each for quite a while.  Very inspiring.

Who I wish I’d met, but didn’t have the opportunity to connect with them:
Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book (Twitter and Blogger extraordinaire)
Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, (his breakout session was during Norm Brodsky’s session)
Seth Godin, online marketing genius
Alex Bogusky, best-known creative in the advertising industry today. Solid business mind as well.

48 hours of entrepreneurial re-charge. Ahhhhhhh!