On being part of the event circuit

Last week, I bumped into Sarah Rowland (whose reading you might have read on the 24 Hours Vancouver newspaper) at the opening of Q4 al Centro at L’Hermitage, and after a quick hug, she told me “hey Raul, I haven’t seen you on the circuit lately, how have you been? Oh, right, you are probably in the middle of final exams, aren’t you?”. I answered “yes, I am… and I have a pile THIS BIG of final research papers to mark… *sigh*”.

Admittedly, I attend restaurant openings (like The Helm’s recent opening)

Annika, Cindy, me and Cristina

Galas and fundraisers benefitting non-profits (like The Night of New Beginnings)

Michelle Clasius (Covenant House), Elaine Lui (Lainey Gossip) and me

Travel media events (like the recent Tourism Victoria social mixer)

Julie Ovenell-Carter (Why Go Canada and These Boots Travel) and me

Wine and food events (like the Mission Hill Wine)

Fashion shows (I used to model, so I can’t get it out of my system)

Fashion events, and product launches (like the recent Naked Boxer Brief launch)

Non-profit media events (like the Raise Your Hand for The Record with Josh Dueck event)

Richard Loat, Gus Fosarolli and me

But I don’t attend events for a living 🙂 I wish I could, though!

I will fully admit that I felt really happy that Sarah (and for the most part, the vast majority of my fellow bloggers/media personalities as well as most of my PR partners) understood that the blogging, event and social media stuff I do is my side gig, not my main one. The main one is research, teaching and consulting. I’m a full-time academic (and even if I am not what you’d call a professional blogger, I take my blogging and social media activities quite seriously and professionally).

To be quite frank and honest, I decline a substantial number of invites. So, really, the number of events you see me at is actually a very small fraction of the total of invitations I receive.That’s not being snobbish, it’s being honest, and strategic. It’s also called taking care of myself. I can only attend so many events before I get exhausted. Admittedly, it was my “hummingbird-like” personality that added to the popularity of my blog: the fact that I would visit (and often, write about) so many events on the same night.

I really don’t do that anymore (the whole visiting 5 events in a night), or at least, I try my hardest not to. I don’t want event organizers to even think that I’m not adding value and respecting their event (a perception that is totally untrue, because if, with my ridiculously busy schedule, I make the time to attend even for 5 minutes, it means I DO care about the event). So, I’ve eschewed drama and conflicts around this and decided only to RSVP to events I actually can attend. I may say on my social platforms that I’m quadruple-booked for the evening, but in all truth, what that means is – I have 4 events on my agenda, but I only RSVP’d to one and I will only make that one. And sorry to the three who invited me. I often will tweet about the events I won’t attend to give them exposure, quite frankly. Simply because I find that’s the only thing I can possibly do.

I can’t do that to myself anymore (the whole “try to fit 5 events in one night”). My body can’t take it.

I keep finding old tweets and blog posts of mine where I say “I’m so exhausted I want to cry“. That’s not healthy to me. Particularly, if you think about the fact that I blogged last year about how in 2010 I was going to focus on myself, before focusing on anyone else.

I will fully admit I considered shutting down Hummingbird604.com earlier this year. Yes, I did. But I was able to (luckily) find a way to combine all of my professional activities with my social media side gig. Admittedly, this means I wake up earlier than most people do on Saturdays and Sundays and devote substantial amounts of times to writing blog posts, uploading photos, sending emails to PR representatives, managing contests, scheduling tweets to promote my content, etc. Blogging and social media are full time jobs!

At this point I am still working full time as an academic (with great consulting projects), but I definitely think I need to find a way to schedule my social media work within the actual work week. Because right now I’m working two full time jobs. I don’t know yet how I am going to do it, but stay tuned, because I will try my best.

[UPDATE – Yes, I know. It sounds slightly ridiculous that I insert a post on how I can’t be on the event circuit anymore, yet I also post about recent events I attended. I wrote this post PRECISELY because of the fact that in the past few months, and in particular this past week, I’ve managed to schedule myself properly, attending only one event per night – and that’s about as many as I’m going to attend in the future, one or MAXIMUM two).