2012

My Dad 2.0 Summit Experience

My Dad 2.0 Summit Experience
It was a whirlwind of fun and energy as I found myself jumping out of bed to jet-set off to Austin, Texas a week ago Friday-morning for the inaugural Dad 2.0 Summit.  Upon arriving to the Hyatt Lost Pines resort Friday evening, I was pleasantly surprised by the kick-butt Dove Men + Care package left in my room.  And no, I'm not special, everybody got one.  ;-)

dove pkg


Making my way to the conference rooms to get in on some of the night's festivities, I found myself walking into a room of the most influential "daddy-bloggers" in North America.  A bit intimidating at first as this is a world I'm completely new to ( well, that was before this weekend ) and they completely blew my mind.  Not only were these "cool" dads, but they were trendy, dynamic and uber nice.  A bunch of real people with real knacks at sharing their stories through social media.  And to top it off, XBOX Kinect, one of the event sponsors had 4 giant TV's set up showcasing the new game, Kinect Rush.  This was AWESOME!  Admittedly after 30 minutes of gaming I had a pretty good sweat on.  Love the Kinect -- it definitely gets the Moose's "4 Hooves" up rating.

Off to bed for an early Saturday morning workout, I was tasked by Dove Men+Care with the responsibility of leading a group of dads through a CrossFit -style workout to get their days started.  A group of 7 early risers joined me at 7 a.m. full of positive energy and plenty of bounce in their steps, they came smiling and eager to "throw down" what I had in store for them.  The weather not being in our favor, I made a quick change in programming, and rather than 1 of my equipment free workouts  we did a modified tabata style workout followed by a quick 5-minute ab tester, finishing up with a 3 minute metabolic conditioning workout.  These 3 mini-workouts, taking less than 30 minutes to complete left everyone feeling great... mind you though, I'm not too sure how they might have felt 2-days post workout, but I know they all walked out of that room at 8am with ease.  (LOL - it was everyone's first " Tabata " workout)

The Dads Post CrossFit WOD a la Tabata


I was fortunate to have the whole rest of the day to take in some of the panel discussions at the Summit as well as the keynote speaker, Guy Kawasaki's presentation entitled, " Enchantment ".  Not only inspirational, but extremely entertaining and funny too.  Really wish I didn't have to rush out so quickly to make it to the airport as I really wanted to meet Mr. Kawasaki after the presentation was done... guess I will have to chase him down at the next event for him to autograph a book for me.


And of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention all the cool swag that I got from the Summit:




  • LEGO gave me a full tub of blocks (400 pieces!), the ultimate Lego Ideas book to keep me and my girls building into the wee hours of the night;

  • An uber-cool kit from  Dove Men+Care  - complete with body/face wash, shampoo, deodorant stick and a kick-butt cosmetic bag;

  • Honda  was there giving out test drives of the new CRV among other new vehicles in this year's lineup... and to say thanks for driving, gave all of us a very cool stadium blanket;

  • The crew from  Spare One  gave  all attendees an EMERGENCY Mobile Phone.   Plug in a single AA battery and this nifty mobile keeps its charge for 15 years so you can use it out of the package to dial 911 for emergencies or add a SIM card and use it like a regular mobile phone.


All in all, I loved every minute of the experience and look forward to joining in the fun again next year.

dad 2 schwag

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