Some of you may have heard my story of how I won an iPad last summer while attending the Read Write Web Real-Time Web Summit. But many of you have not. It came up at dinner last night, and I thought it was finally deserving of a blog post of its own.
Man, that was quite a week. First, I won tickets to the one-day conference, hosted in New York City. (The conference was outstanding; you can read a recap on my professional blog.) While there, they announced they would be giving away six iPads over the course of the day. At lunch, they gave away four by random drawing. The last two, they said, would be given out at the closing session to whomever created the best rap or poem. Yes, rap or poem.
So, for the rest of the afternoon, I scribbled verses on a scrap of paper, muttering rhymes and rhythms under my breath. By the time the closing session began, I was as ready as I would ever be. Luckily, I was sitting next to my higher ed partner in crime, J.D. Ross, whom I was happy to have around for reassurance.
Soon, my time arrived:
And I WON! Can you believe it? (The other winner, though, probably deserved them both, as I think he is an Actual Rapper.)
Since the audio wasn’t so good on the video, here is a transcription of the lyrics:
I came down from Boston to learn about real-time
Didn’t know that I’d have to bust a rhyme
But even if I don’t win a 3G iPad
I know I won’t be going home feeling mad
I learned about trust and content curation
Speed-geeked with geeks from ’round the nation
Reputation management
I know what McManus meant
When he said the Real-Time Summit
was a great event
Had a lot of fun thanks to Read Write Web
They said it wouldn’t be great and they really didn’t fib
I like meeting experts in the world of social media
It’s more fun than editing Wikipedia
Now I gotta go catch the 7 o’clock train
Real-time web, you know we make it rain!
I’ll catch up with you all a little bit later
I’m @radiofreegeorgy on Twitter.
