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my thoughts on Warren Buffet (edited: Ha! I'll spell his name correctly: Buffett!)

Lunch, yesterday, was for real a blast. A few observations:
  • The Omaha Chamber of Commerce is a really impressive, tightly knit group of people who take their networking seriously. I saw so many cards passed and sincere collaboration ideas shared. It was just entertaining to sit and watch these interactions unfold.
  • Chamber people are classy people. There were 2500 people at this luncheon (I know!) and everyone was wearing dark suits with new haircuts, good makeup and nice watches (you can sort out which gender each of those comments pair up with.)
  • Networking is everyone's top priority. Our table was super conversational and in the end of the meal we each had nine new contacts. At our table we had the head fundraiser for Omaha Salvation Army, the director of sales for KGBI (a local Christian radio station), a man who hosts a Saturday evening local Omaha television show on NBC, an attorney, and the woman who runs the young entrepreneurs arm of the Omaha Chamber.
  • I'm pretty sure a memo was sent out before the event, warning people not to drink their water during the meal. I didn't get this memo. I drank my water and then another glass. And then I sat for the next 90 minutes, marveling at how no one else at the table touched their water, and wondering how they knew better than to drink it. And then I sat and marveled at how distracting a full bladder is.

Warren Buffet interviewed Hank Paulson, the Treasury Secretary for President Bush. It was very casual, two leather chairs up front with them basically having a conversation about what went wrong and why our economy is in its current state. It was interesting, but its so hard to know the truth when everyone has a different spin on the same story. And it's hard to concentrate when so much of your energy is plotting your path to the bathroom as soon as these two guys wrap it up.

But it was a great experience for sure. I love networking and this kind of event is every extroverts dream gathering.

3 comments:

Marlene said...

Go, Becca, go!!
I was waiting for this report. What did Rory think of the discussions?

annika said...

hilarious. no one else drank their water. i would have been your girlfriend bathroom buddie!

Rory said...

it was very good. I'm glad we went. The Omaha Chamber of Commerce is one of the most active in the country -- few other cities can claim this kind of turnout.

Was cool to see the Oracle of Omaha in person, although he didn't do much of the talking. It was mostly Hank Paulson's show. I do know that Buffett's general investment strategy is "put it in an index fund and forget about it." Questionable whether the dollar will decline with debt levels so high, but that's another topic (consider some ratio of commodities or gold right now).

Hearing from the Governor, Mayor, and other high profile CEOs, etc was also great. But its mostly about the networking, as Becca mentioned.