Beth Robinson

One of the best things about going to a convention in the center of a large city is the meals. And Vegas is one of the best for that, although the experience is still rivaled by the time I visited New Orleans.

Boa Steakhouse

Imagine a darker space with a buzz of noise that still seemed to have a quiet modern feel due to the high ceilings and decorative touches. Between the rounded booths and tables are bare trees reminiscent of driftwood rooted in lighted boxes with glass chips.

This was Boa, a steak house in the Forum Shoppes at Caesar's Palace and Wednesday's dinner location.

I chose the evening's special - Filet Oscar, for my entree. I've had this dish at various restaurants before - it's crab meat on top of filet mignon with a bearnaise sauce served with asparagus. This variation was the best of those that I remember.

The steak was tangy and well-flavored and cooked perfectly. The crab added another complementary taste and the jumbo asparagus spears were just the right amount of done. The accompanying rolls were delicious and didn't really need any butter because they were done enough enough to be crumbly on the outside while still being richly soft on the inside.

I finished up with a sorbet platter, which I especially liked because of the plating. Instead of offering you a choice, they bring out one plate with three ball scoops, each with a different flavor. Each scoop is resting on its own winglike cracker and the whole thing is arranged in a circle with a touch of fruit.

Osteria del Circo

Now think of what you might do if you were told to make a circus themed decor for an elegant restaurant. I probably would have drawn a blank or tried to build on Cirque du Soleil. Instead there were drapes of gold and red, understated triangles and stripes, and other touches that brought to mind an old-time big top.

Off to one side of the table a metal monkey on a ball rolled along wires from time to time and in another direction was a fantastic bronzed mobile, spinning so we could see the three performers, as if they were dropping in from the trapeze.

This was Circo, an Italian restaurant inside the Bellagio. And the very best part of the decor was the large windows directly facing the fountain, so I was able to see portions of the water show multiple times during Thursday's meal.

I misjudged my ordering here. I picked a mushroom soup with marinated lobster as my appetizer. The lobster was great but the soup wasn't creamy or brothy but something kind of gritty in the middle and I didn't finish it. My colleague who ordered the same thought it was quite good, but I guess I didn't quite care for the texture.

I'd like to make one quick detour into the restroom between courses. I opened the door and was awash in blue and green. It was a fantastic use of subtly varying tile that made me feel like I was stepping in a cool pool. A nice touch was that there were rolled cloths for drying your hands instead of paper towels and a basket to toss the used ones into. Plus, when I returned to my table the cloth napkin I'd left on my seat was refolded and on the table in front of me. Classy.

As my entree I had a delicious veal and mushroom ravioli that was just the right balance between the heaviness of pasta and a lighter taste. Bits of mushroom and scraps of veal were mixed in among the green and cream raviolis, all topped with shavings of parmesan cheese.

Tonight's sorbet was raspberry in a very generous helping. It was creamy enough that it was almost ice cream and I polished it off. I was full enough that I needed to make an extra round of the shops after returning to the hotel because there wasn't enough of a walking distance between the two.

Planet Hollywood

Ugly decor.

Okay, I should be generous to other tastes and say the decor of the hotel at the Planet Hollywood casino was very op and modern and just not to my own taste. But I think I'll settle for ugly and dark.

The color combinations were muddy and the patterns more distracting than appealing. For example, when I first got in my room I thought there was a lot of black in it coupled with some light brown. It was only the next day in full sunlight that I could see it was a deep purple and a rich gold. Which still only sort of worked.

There was very little light in the rooms. I was straining to read by the dinky bulb they put in the bedside light, even with the tall lamp elsewhere in the room on as well. Blessedly the desk lamp was bright for when I spent time on the computer, but that was it.

I'm sure it was more luxuriously appointed than the older casinos, but I wouldn't have expected as much of them. When I was in Vegas in 2006 I stayed in the Paris and saw the Venetian and those were beautiful. Part of that is I liked the style, but I've seen good modern too, and this really wasn't it.

One major plus was the large bathroom which came complete with soaking tub and separate shower. My feet really appreciated the tub after walking around conventions all day. Here the wallpaper was lighter, with circles and squares in beige and metallic gold layered over cream. I liked the effect because the squares in gold would show up more or less depending on the angle that you looked at them.

And I need to leave kudos for the concierge. The same gentleman recommended both the Boa and the Circo when we just mentioned we were thinking of steak the one night and Italian the other night and wanted to step away from the hotel for the meal. I was very satisfied.

This last week I was in Las Vegas for two industry conventions related to my job as a chemist.

Surfaces

The primary reason I was traveling was to support a new product launch at Surfaces - a show for all the things that you can put down to decorate and cover a floor, either in a home or business setting.

There were manufacturers of carpet, hardwood floor, vinyl, and tile. Then there were the related companies, like the adhesives needed to lay these materials down (that's us), radiant floor heating systems, carpet cleaners and sealers, and companies selling software for better estimating and managing installation jobs, among other various sundry things.

We had a respectably sized booth with a key featured area promoting the new product that I'm the primary product development chemist on. It's an adhesive intended to lay down a hardwood floor on a concrete slab in one day, instead of needing to put down a moisture vapor retarder or acoustical underlayment first and then glue down the wood. And I believe it's better than what our competitors have out there. Which was the point of designing it.

The display was getting attention, partly because of the odd appearance of the rubber particles within the glue. An unexpected feature that's essentially the first claim in the patent application we submitted. (I'm pretty excited about that one. When the claim goes all the way through it will be my first patent.) The guys at the plant called it cookies and cream and our marcom head who set up the event bought some great LARGE dalmation stuffed animals to set around the booth for a bit of humor. I cracked up when she first pulled them out of their boxes, at least.

I really enjoyed getting to talk to some of our customers, although I wasn't the primary contact - that was one of the salesmen manning the booth. I helped with presenting the benefits and features alongside and I was able to listen first hand to what actually mattered to them. It's good to be able to get out of the lab and experience how we must be, in the end, a customer focused company.

Part of the show experience is walking it - getting to see what everyone else is doing. I visited our competitors, and saw much that was familiar and one or two things that were new. I marveled at the glass tiles (so beautiful) and enjoyed the different woods and paid attention to who was doing what. Some of my colleagues were also looking for new contacts for the salesmen to call on with some of our other new products.

In a way the show is also just a setting for get-togethers. I rarely meet many of our sales people and only get to see the marketing folks a few times a year, since we're geographically dispersed. It's nice to put faces to names, even if I'm pretty sure I won't recognize them next time we meet, and connect when there's not a specific task to accomplish. And then there's meals - in this case with my fellow R&D folk, but discussions that range wider than a typical day. I learned a couple of really interesting bits of history this time around, too.

There was a lot of "green" at the show, which I paid close attention to, but I'll fit that into another post.

World of Concrete

I also visited the World of Concrete, where we had another, smaller, booth. One of my colleagues and I walked the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center with a bit of diligence and made some good contacts. I got to chat with a supplier I hadn't seen in person for over a year, although we'd been doing some business over email. That was pretty useful.

One thing that particularly caught my eye was the stamped concrete. I'd seen the technique used on Curb Appeal on HGTV one time a couple months ago but hadn't realized how sophisticated it could get. Some of those colors and finishs were dramatically different. I could easily see how they would be appropriate in all sorts of environments. The brick and the cobblestone versions, for example, had to be cheaper than the doing the actual work instead of just going for the effect and in some places would work great.

I kind of wondered why none of them had gone to the Surfaces show. Maybe because they're not going to be accessed through the same outlets? But one of the audiences of Surfaces is designers, and you'd think the stamped concrete folks would want to get in front of them.

Out of the South Hall there was that many booths another four times over, including outdoor demo areas. That convention center is HUGE. There was very little of direct use to me elsewhere but there were large pieces of equipment and very dramatic displays both inside and out. I can definitely see why they've drawn a social media following.

This week I joined The Third Tribe, a membership in a learning group built around the concept of the third tribe, a place between the internet marketers who employ every possible tactic to get someone's money (not all internet marketers are like that, of course) and the very community oriented bloggers who seem to think money is bad.

They tell the story very well on the intro page of Inside the Third Tribe. (NOT an affiliate link, btw)

All the discussions going on are intense and amazing. It might be just the start-up phase but I've already had something of a mindshift, being around people who are deliberately thinking this way. I was especially influenced by the first seminar, which was Sonia Simone talking with Johnny Truant.

It was just one line that wasn't even the point of the discussion. What he makes money doing is not what he is writing about.

Separating Services from Content

Somehow this sparked a chain of thoughts that ended with the decision to remove my copywriting services from Leading with Content and put them here. Leading with Content would then become a site dedicated to helping manufacturing and chemical companies use content marketing.

I feel kind of silly saying this, because that's what it was before. But it was that with the intention of providing a platform to attract potential customers. In my mind I felt like I needed to be the expert who was justifying the professional B2B fees that I've seen in the industry benchmarks.

But I wasn't. And that dichotomy was killing me.

I have a lot of faith in my ability, and a good chunk of both business and copywriting education, but no portfolio, no sales experience, and no clients.

I need to be casting my net on Elance and in a lower price range to stretch my wings and get little wins before I get big ones. (Yes, I know there are people who say I don't need to and I can make a plan to just go big, but small steps have worked better for me in the past.)

Now I can do that without contradicting myself.

And my opinions on content marketing and knowledge of the manufacturing industry outside of my little corner of it will grow.

And my abilities and proof of them will grow.

And one day I'll turn around and step by step I will have grown into my specialty and be connected to people who might find my services worthwhile - either as a freelancer or as a portion of a corporate postion.

Consolidating Thoughts while Disregarding Opportunities

Despite previous disclaimers about starting a marketing blog, I did try. And stopped. I also tried to start a green materials themed blog. And stopped.

Somehow the seminar also helped me realize that I could just pull it all in and be me here. Yes, that's why I built this blog. But I'd gotten caught up in thinking about opportunities to make money instead of thinking about how not everything needed to try to be a business. Some of it was just about writing what I loved. Some of it was just about talking to other people that way.

And maybe they won't care about what I do. And that's okay.

And maybe a few will.