I am a Marketing Genius!

This might be two week old news, but I still think it is worth telling.

On February 27th, the 5th Annual Financial Horizons Conference took place, and it was an overwhelming success. The event had 540 registered attendees, the actual amount who came is estimated to be about 60%, but I will have a concrete number when I finally motivate myself to go through the sign in lists (probably over spring break). Thanks to June, the mom of the club, (who I appreciate more and more the longer I am in UIS) everything went smoothly and without a hitch.

In addition, there were some amazing speakers in attendance. The ex-COO of Enron, Harold Buchanan, gave a presentation elegantly explained why Enron's actions were not criminal but just bad business. I am not sure whether I completely believe him or not, but his presentation really opened my eyes to another side of the story, not often told.

Another notable speaker was Mike Alfred, the founder of Brightscope. Brightscope is a 401k ratings company that is gaining more and more traction everyday. A lot of major news outlets have already taken note of his start up and pointed it out as the next big thing. Not surprisingly, he gave quite the anti-establishment speech about success, which is always refreshing. It is good to know that your major does not limit you or doom you to a certain career. Seeing Mike, a history major in college, start a successful finance company I can really believe that I can do anything.

Definitely the best part of this whole conference experience is getting credited by the co-president for making it a success. Justified or not, he feels that it was all my work that brought in these record numbers. It feels great when you see your flyers, tweets and facebook posts having an effect in bringing people in. The data I have gathered does not seem to suggest that I played such a major role in drawing people in, but goddammit I am still taking credit for the record turn out on my resume, and if someone credits me, who am I to turn it down!

-muffinman