IRDC

Next week, I'm participating in my first Iron Merchant conference call of the year with Anne DiNardo, VMSD's managing editor, and Joe Baer, founder of ZenGenius in Columbus, Ohio. Iron Merchant is IRDC's awesome audience-participation event, in which five teams have one hour to create a complete window display using the materials we supply, one common theme and one "secret ingredient." Joe Baer helped launch this friendly competition four years ago at IRDC in San Francisco, and it's grown in scope and popularity every year since.

I get such a kick out of this event. Joe is an infectiously fun emcee and I'm amazed by what our participants can crank out in such a short amount of time. And I'm looking forward to this first conversation with Anne (who does all the nitty-gritty coordination work on our side of things) and Joe (who does the same on his side, as the event's "creative director"). Much like when we're working on the IRDC brochure, I find that brainstorming themes, props, potential secret ingredients and new twists on the challenge really helps me get into the spirit of IRDC. It also provides me with a mental happy place to visit when I'm doing more tedious tasks like hunting down speaker bios or copy-editing on-site signage. 

I'm putting together a slide show of images from past Iron Merchant Challenges, which I'll post soon for your amusement. Seriously, check out the creativity and craftsmanship on display. These are the kind of people you're going to want to hang with.