Today is technically day 0 of Opticon, but our festivities have already begun with training sessions, happy hours, as well as customer dinners that we’ve organized, which involve getting similar customers into the same dinner venues for mingling and networking. I sat at a dinner table with various customers and colleagues from AT&T, Cricket, HBO, and Showtime tonight, and what seemed to be the unifying theme among all of them is that not only are they all happy customers who love our technology, but they also all seem like very smart, well-rounded, well-traveled individuals who love to share stories and learn. Overall, it was a very engaging conversation.

It was a fun but exhausting dinner. What I’ve also noticed in hosting customer dinners now is that I seem to enjoy my food less at these events. I used to be able to enjoy the food a lot, but now I feel more focused on ensuring there is customer interaction and engagement that I tend to get more sidetracked with my food. We went to a pretty nice steakhouse, but for me, I felt my steak was too rare, but I didn’t want to send it back since I didn’t want to make a fuss and wait to eat.

It made me feel a bit ungrateful. I get this nice, fancy, expensive meal fully paid for, but I’m not even fully enjoying and appreciating it the way I should.