On Professional Intimacy…

The other day I found myself sitting in a Marriott in West Des Moines.

It was a perfectly good hotel… but it was a Marriott in West Des Moines. And West Des Moines is a wonderful town, but it’s not New York City, either.

(In fact, it’s not even Des Moines. West Des Moines is its own city.)

I like to work in hotel lobbies in the morning. I was drinking coffee and not getting a lot done, when I found myself staring across at the “conference center.” They had a half dozen little conference rooms in a wing of the hotel off the lobby. I think some Shriner’s group was meeting in a couple of them – there were lots of middle-aged guys in khaki shorts and tall socks who were probably the reason for all the Corvettes in the parking lot.

Now I’ve gone to a lot of big conferences, all over the world. I’ve spoken to rooms of thousands of people. I’ve spent time at the epicenter of my industry. And its undeniably glamorous.

I remember once finding myself in what can only be called a full-blown, rockstar hotel suite inside Disney World, just because I agreed to run my mouth from a stage for 25 minutes (there were three bathrooms; I lost my toothbrush at one point). I felt a sense of surreal wonder about it. I felt the same thing from a hotel room over-looking Singapore harbor. Like… how did I get here?

But lately, I’m wondering if the right people might do so much more in a conference room at the West Des Moines Marriott.

On Tuesday, I spent the day at at a small conference in Sioux Falls. I think there were 40 people there. But work got done. Things were learned. Relationships were made. People were changed. I was personally put on the spot. I was questioned. I wrestled with things. I saw and felt more real things happen there than I see at massive events in high-profile venues in big cities.

I remember touring the old, retired Air Force One as a teenager. It’s at the Museum of Flight in Seattle – a Boeing 707, I think. I remember standing in front of the “conference table.” It was small; you’d be lucky to get four people around it. But think for a second about the groups of four that sat around that table and the things they talked about.

Big decisions were made. For better or worse, the world was changed around that table. That was the room where it happened.

…back to me sitting in the lobby, drinking coffee and day-dreaming a bit.

I found myself thinking: “If you get the right people in ‘Salon C’ of the West Des Moines Marriott, you could change this industry.”

I don’t know where I’m going with this, except to say that I feel like my professional life is becoming more “intimately focused.” I’m less about massive groups of people – physically or digitally – and more about getting the right people across the same table. I don’t want to talk to a lot of people, I just want to talk to the right people in a meaningful way.

Preferably in some offbeat location that brings no baggage and doesn’t overshadow the work.

Maybe West Des Moines? I know a place we could meet.