Extreme Gratitude, D.C. Edition
Friends and readers, greetings from AA flight 84, en route to the Dallas Ft-Worth airport. I’ve been there several times recently, and am thinking of setting up a tent around A-20.
Thanks so much to everyone who came out to our meetup in Washington, D.C. on Thursday night. I had a great time and was humbled as usual by all the fun and interesting people who showed up.
Check out the meetup photos courtesy of Jen Lemen and Roxy Allen. And of course, here’s my thank-you video for those who were there.
The rest of the post is the Sunday Store Update, where I share news about the small business side of AONC.
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Democratizing Free Travel on Thursday, November 5th
After a flurry of effort, the final Unconventional Guide of 2009 is now ready to go. It’s called Frequent Flyer Master, and the goal is to democratize travel by empowering more people to travel for free.
Lesson learned: if you’re going to create an awesome information product without a partner, I’d advise against trying to edit a full-length book manuscript at the same time you’re writing 15,000 words of content for the manual in addition to several other deliverables. I’ll try to remember that for later, but despite the time crunch, we’re on schedule for the launch on Thursday morning.
I recorded the audio session from a nook in the Dallas airport on the way in to Baltimore earlier this week. Then I went to the print shop in D.C. to pick up the PDF proof from Reese so I could copy-edit on the flight back to Dallas after my three days of meetings.
Side rant on FedEx Kinko’s: I heard about this neat service from FedEx Kinko’s that allows you to email a document to a local store, then show up later and pick up the printout. What a great idea, I thought. That sounds like it could really help when I’m traveling and on a time crunch to proof a long document.
While working at a coffee shop in D.C., I followed the instructions and sent them my file—but then they sent me a release form I had to PRINT OUT and fax back to them. Aside from the fact that no one I know actually has a fax machine anymore, how was I supposed to print the form? If I could print anything, I would just print the document I needed to begin with. I finally just walked down the street and did everything in person.
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All of that aside, I really hope this guide will help a lot of people achieve their own travel goals through the creative use of Frequent Flyer Miles. The challenge in making the materials was to think about how to help people who don’t travel that often but would still like to fly more often or more affordably.
I think I’ve done that fairly well, and I think forward to tell you more about it tomorrow and Thursday. Next week, I’ll follow my own advice and head out to Baku, Azerbaijan thanks to a Lufthansa award booked with United miles.
Until tomorrow, I hope all is well with you, wherever you are. Thanks for reading.
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