ICCFA 2011 Convention speaker Juliet Funt, who talked about the importance of "white space" (unscheduled time) and how to get more of it in your life, ended her fun and informative presentation with a short "anthem," with the help of ICCFA members Mark Krause and Doug Gober (on loan from the Cryptones), Mike Hays and Nicole Weideman.

The audience loved it, and so will you. It's a 2-minute picker-upper (click on the pic to listen):

The lyrics:

Every day of my life there’s more to achieve,
A sense of urgency that just won’t leave,
I try to do my best,
But they put me to the test,
...It’s the Culture of Insatiability on me,
But I’m singin’ a different tune now listen to me- I’m freed!

Singin’
I can let it go,
The pressure and the stress and the crazy rat race,
I can let it go,
So come and grab a little white space with me.

It’s noble work to counsel the bereaved,
The satisfaction’s not be believed.
But then the florist’s late,
And the grandson get irate,
It’s the little things that make me anxious and distressed,
Even Todd Van Beck would be a mess- unless, he sang,

I can let it go,
The pressure and the stress and the crazy rat race,
I can let it go,
So come and grab a little white space with me.

I can let it go,
The pressure and the stress and the crazy rat race,
I can let it go,
So come and grab a little white space with me.

The photos from the ICCFA 2011 Convention & Expo are starting to go up ... on Facebook! But you don't have to join to see them. Just click on the photos below to go to the photo albums, and check back here throughout the next few days for more links.

Check out photos of the Opening Reception at the ICCFA 2011 Convention & Expo here (click on the pic):

The awards and recognitions here (click on the pic):

And the PLPA's opening reception here (click on the pic):

My goodness I could live in San Antonio.  I was not crazy about Houston, real nice people, great food, but hot, hot, hot, hot.  

My personal opinion is that San Antonio has to be one of the best cities in the world to have a convention, fun, history, culture, and of course the River Walk, what a wonderful city.  

My buddy Rob Heppell from Canada had never seen the Alamo, and I was staying at the Historic Menger Hotel which was right next door to the center of independence, and so he and I walked over after dinner.  Rob looked at me and said “The Alamo, wow, this is where Custer had his last stand.”  Rob is so talented, so bright, but I had to gently correct his US history.

The convention once again opened my eyes, confused my mind, inspired me and worried me concerning the state of the state of funeral service.  I had an enlightening conversation with a buddy of mine concerning green burials, and he assured me that the worry I have concerning critters stealing – well just imagine, folks – was unfounded.  He said the gravediggers everywhere would always under all conditions dig a grave deep enough that critters could not smell the remains.  He was the expert, not me.

I was once again struck by all the technology, baffling stuff, and I still have not, probably never will get a handle on it all.  Possibly I am not alone?

However what struck me, and as usual I was mighty happy about this, was the smiling faces, the collegiality, the courtesy, the friendships which were evidenced by the attendees.

I have wished for many things in my career, and seeing cemeterians, monument dealers, florists, attorneys, funeral directors, embalmers, insurance companies, techy people, grave diggers, landscape artists, worker bees, corporate executives, and just about anybody connected with death care that you could think of actually talking together, seemingly having a good time, no gigantic egos, just people with a common cause smiling, laughing and learning together is for me a wish come true.

www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=195375&id=87540039256&l=29dd1bee13

I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know this:  isolation, exclusivity, egos run amuck, myopic visions, and protectionism, territories and boundaries, does not work, and will continue to fall apart as time marches on.

ICCFA’s model does not continue to kick dinosaurs. 

Anyway that is one old undertaker’s opinion.  TVB

ICCFA'S "NEXT GENERATION" TO HOLD TECH PANEL, HAPPY HOUR OUTING AT 2010 CONVENTION

The "next generation" of death care professionals will have an opportunity to meet and share ideas at two activities geared specifically toward them and their interests at the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association's 2010 Convention & Exposition, March 10-13 in San Antonio, Texas.

The ICCFA's recently formed Next Generation Steering Committee, composed of up-and-coming industry and association leaders, will host a panel discussion on technology and social media within the profession, to be followed that evening by a Happy Hour gathering at Bar Rojo in the Grand Hyatt San Antonio.

The Technology Panel discussion will offer a rare opportunity to chat with and ask questions of Convention keynote speakers Tara Hunt and Ze Frank, two of the world's top experts in online media and social networks and their practical applications for businesses.

"This session and the entire Convention Tech Track represent a key to our future," said committee member Norman Connors, a funeral director at Bean Funeral Homes and Cremation Services, Shillington, Pennsylvania. "Ignoring technology is no longer an option. We are a profession focused on service, and good service increasingly means reaching out to families and our communities using "high-tech' to achieve "high-touch.'"

The ICCFA's Next Generation is dedicated to developing future leaders, providing relevant educational opportunities and giving younger industry members opportunities to network and connect with each other. All members and Convention attendees are welcome to participate in the group's activities.

Individuals who are interested in serving on the Next Generation Steering Committee are asked to contact ICCFA Director of Communications and Membership Services Linda Budzinski at 1.800.645.7700.

The ICCFA 2010 Convention & Exposition offers 84 hours of educational programming and an exhibit hall with more than 360 supplier booths. Funeral directors can earn up to 19 hours of continuing education credits. Complete details and an online registration form are available at www.iccfaconvention.com.

Funeral Guru Rob Heppell will be chairing the Technology Track at the 2010 ICCFA Convention.

(For more program information, click here for the Tech Track workshops and click here for the Tech Track keynotes by Tara Hunt and Ze Frank).

Every Tuesday from now until March, Rob will be presenting "Technology Track Tuesday" as an educational lead up to the ICCFA Convention.

The first Tech Track Tuesday podcast is this interview with your humble narrator, recorded this morning.

[By the way, Online Registration for the Convention is now available.)

If you have not already done so, please mark your calendar now for the ICCFA Convention in San Antonio, March 10-13, 2010.

Watch the video below (click here for YouTube link) and hear what attendees say about the last ICCFA Convention ... and then raise your expectations for The Next Step. All hyperbole aside, it will be the best continuing education program you have ever experienced.

The amazing Funeral Futurist, Robin Heppell, was one of the friends we got to hang out with this week at the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association Convention in Atlantic City. The most technology-savvy person I know in this industry, Robin has graciously agreed to serve as Chair of our "Technology Track" at the 2010 ICCFA Convention.

Robin has put together a fantastic program which will go in-depth explaining how to implement new technologies at your business (and this is in addition to the excellent Technology Track keynote presentations by Tara Hunt and Ze Frank).

Here, Rob got out early in the morning and recorded an overview of the Technology Track while he was strolling the boardwalk. I happen to know he did not have his editing equipment with him, so this was done as straight shot with no cuts - which says a lot about this man's lucidity first thing in the am.

If he can do a video like this after rolling out of bed, imagine what he will do with months to prepare for the Technology Track in San Antonio.

As the 2010 ICCFA Program Chair, I want to tell you that our convention committee will be working hard to make the 2010 Annual Convention the best it can possibly be. Your input and suggestions are welcomed!

Last song of the night last night, killer finish to Convention week.

Keynote speaker and all-around good guy Doug Gober on lead vocals.

UPDATE: Thanks to one of our commenters, here is the full list of Cryptones band members:

Keyboards & Vocals - Vicky Amato (performer at Pat O'Briens and wife of Doug Gober, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Bass - Chris Bentley (Las Vegas, Nevada)
Guitar and Vocals - Mike Burke (Palm Mortuary, Las Vegas, Nevada)
Vocals and Tambourine - Doug Gober (Matthews International Corporation, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Guitar - Mark Krause (Krause Funeral Homes, Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
Guitar - Rick Martin (Palm Mortuary, Las Vegas, Nevada)
Sax - Jay Poster (King David Memorial Chapel, Las Vegas, Nevada)
Drums - Rich Webster (Las Vegas, Nevada)

I only got one angle from the right side but the entire performance was professionally filmed so eventually the whole thing, with video of the entire band, may be available.

After a truly fantastic Convention this week, we did not deserve any more blessings but we sure got one at the end of the night. Is this a great country or what!?

That's Mike Burke, Chancellor of ICCFA University, and Vicky Amato, New Orleans piano bar maven and wife of keynote speaker Doug Gober, on lead vocals, and our immediate past president (and also a University professor) Mark Krause on lead guitar.

Here is a glimpse at the 2009 ICCFA Convention, which so far has been very good: large crowds in the Expo Hall and excellent educational sessions for the most part.

Well it turns out "blogging the Convention" is a likelihood on a par with "blogging a swim across the English Channel" because the experience is on the arduous side and the Internet access is problematic.

Just the walk from the Hotel portion of Mandalay Bay to the Convention portion is enough to obliviate one's language ability for several hours. And, unfortunately, the only place you can get on the Internet is at the Hotel. For those of us working the Convention, you leave your room between 6-7 am, and do not return until after 7 at night at the earliest, and when you do you are more likely to submerge yourself in a hot bath or large tub of single malt than to sit at a keyboard.

Because of the social functions we have not made it back to the room before 9:30 pm any night. I have captured some great video, but in trying to edit and encode for the Web site I have tended to simply fall asleep.

But I can say the Convention is a huge success numbers wise. We have set records for attendance, booths, revenue, and everything that is good and holy. Numerous people have remarked "ICCFA just took the next big step." Pretty cool thing.

I'll try to do a little more with the video, but likely will just end up asleep on this desk. One more day to go.

It's nearly 6 p.m. Friday in Virginia, but the calls are still coming in from people who want to register for the ICCFA Convention in Las Vegas, which starts Monday night and promises to be our largest convention ever. Since there won't be anyone here to answer the phone over the weekend, here's what you need to know:

• Yes, you can still register. You will need to do so on site, at the Mandalay Bay.

• The ICCFA registration desk (702.322.4383) at the Mandalay Bay will be open before the convention begins. Don't forget, these are Vegas times:

Sunday, noon-5 p.m.

Monday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m. (The 1st-timers Reception starts at 5:30; at 6 p.m. the Expo Hall opens for everyone.)

The registration desk will continue to operate through Thursday, though it will move after the Expo closes on Wednesday afternoon.

• The Mandalay Bay is sold out. It never hurts to call and see if they have a cancellation, but otherwise, check Joe Budzinski's 4/16 blog post for a list of nearby alternate hotels.

Don't hesitate to make a last-minute decision to attend! The Expo, the educational sessions and the people you'll meet will make it well worth your time and money.

As always, you'll find me roaming the Expo Hall and rushing from session to session taking photos for ICCFA Magazine. I'm celebrating our expected record-setting crowd with a new t-shirt design. Instead of featuring a different cover every day, I've put all the covers for the past year into one design (for the front of the shirts) and am promoting this fabulous Web site on the back. So I'll be easy to spot. See you there!

Just a few items prior to loading up the backpacks, filling the canteens, and trekking over to the Rt. 50 West on ramp for the long hitch hike out to Las Vegas.

• We are going to attempt to video-blog the Convention, so watch this space during the week for updates. I say attempt because you never know what is going to happen onsite. We are definitely going to be capturing tons of video but if it gets too crazy busy maybe we'll just have the old fashioned word-blogs here. In any case the ICCFA Cafe will be the place for Convention news and updates.
• It's officially going to be record attendance and record number of booths sold, I will have numbers posted here probably on Tuesday afternoon when we see what the onsite registration activity has been. As a hint, however: At this moment we have sold 200 more hotel rooms than we did last year and that is just at Mandalay Bay which sold out several weeks ago - no idea yet how many people have reserved at one of the alternate hotels.
• And yes, since there are at least a billion other hotels nearby please do not hesitate to attend the Convention if you are still thinking of it. Either at that link, or at hotels.com, you can easily find a room to suit your budget. Right now, for instance, Luxor has rooms for $85 a night and Excaliber for $46 a night; both are walking distance from Mandalay Bay. Just look for hotels on the "South Strip" or near the airport.
• Be sure to check out Robin Heppel's pre-Convention interviews to hear from some of our speakers and get a sense of what you can expect next week.

Hope to see everyone next week at Mandalay Bay. If we've never met please come introduce yourself, I will be the guy with the video camera, notepad and portable stove.

Robin Heppell, who will be one of our Convention presenters, has taken it upon himself to interview a few of our speakers and create audio files on his site to provide sneak previews of their sessions.

If you're still deciding whether to attend or if you're already registered and want to get a flavor of some of the breakouts in store for you, stop on over to Rob's site at Funeral Gurus and check out the interviews. Thanks, Rob, for putting those together!

For a full Convention program and to register, visit www.iccfaconvention.com.

For what it's worth, our numbers for this event are looking great, with 305 booths currently pre-sold and registration figures at 120% of where they were two years ago, when we hit our all-time record (based on an apples-to-apples, two-weeks-out comparison). Not too shabby, especially in today's down economy. That speaks to the incredible slate of sessions Program Chair Jeff Kidwiler and his committee have put together.

It won't be long now! We're really looking forward to seeing all of you there!

Two people whom you would not normally expect to see on a stage together, Gary O'Sullivan and David Shipper, put on one of the most informative and entertaining presentations I've ever seen, at the 2009 ICCFA Wide World of Sales Conference.

On April 23 at 11:00 am, they are going to do it again at the 2009 ICCFA Convention at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Here is a little preview:

For those of you who missed out in January, this is your chance to see it, and some of you who were at the January conference might choose to watch it again because these are two smart guys who will have undoubtedly done some fine tuning the past few months.

Long story short: Unbeknownst to most of us, David and Gary spent the past three years working out a sales management system for David's properties. In the process, they discovered that all of the existing information and materials out there were in some cases in need of optimization and in all cases in need of integration. Thus, they decided to just write the whole thing from the ground up. And by whole thing I mean from ads to activity tracking, from first day training to detailed Encyclopedia Brittanica-level product awareness, from alpha to omega, from soup to nuts-on-Mars. As somebody who has worked on these sorts of things for the past twenty years, let me assure you their project was an absolutely insane endeavor to take on - but the result is ridiculously good. And I am not saying that as a business endorsement, but simply as someone who has labored in the same vineyard and can appreciate artistry.

This presentation called "What Works" is a tiny offshoot of that project whereby Gary and David share several important things they learned, some of which will likely be of value to every sales manager at the Convention.

Self-promotion gets a bad rap.

In fact, it's almost impossible to talk about the topic of self-promotion without mentioning the word "shameless."

Which, according to my thesaurus, is another word for "audacious, brash, dirty, immoral, improper, presumptuous and rude."

Yikes. No wonder people are so hesitant when it comes to tooting their own horns ... they're afraid.

Afraid of being rejected.
Afraid of looking boastful.
Afraid that they're bragging.
Afraid of sticking themselves out there.

WELL, HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS: Self-promotion doesn't have to be shameless.

Growing up, our teachers, parents and mentors told us (er, brainwashed us) that self-promotion was bad form. 

Not true.

Self-promotion can be a beautiful thing ... when done gracefully.

Scott Ginsberg, the "Nametag Guy" and ICCFA 2009 Keynote Speaker

THINK OF IT THIS WAY: You sit down at a dinner table with seven strangers.

Somebody brings up the topic of children.

"Ooh! Look at these pictures! My daughter just graduated from Kindergarten. Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen? Oh, and she got all As and the teacher LOVES her and all the other students in class think she's the coolest!"

Is THAT an example of self-promotion?

Absolutely.

But would you consider it to be shameless?

No way.

It's passionate. It's loving. It's fun. It's engaging. It's authentic.

And you're not "selling" your kids to the person next to you.

You're merely transferring your love.

And THAT is what self-promotion TRULY is -- transference of emotion.

Here's another example.

At a recent Book Expo in New York City, I spent three days walking around the convention center wearing a giant nametag.

Smiling. Waving. Making friends. Giving away free books. Having fun.

Transferring the emotion of approachability.

And sure, I was promoting my new book, Make a Name for Yourself. But I didn't lead with that. I led with passion and love and authenticity.

And the word shameless wasn't even a consideration.

Interestingly, halfway through the conference, a woman approached me with a big smile on her face and asked why I was wearing this huge nametag.

"Well, I usually wear a regular nametag 24-7, but for this conference I decided to step it up a bit."

It turned out she was a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor. Her assignment was to interview someone for an upcoming article on, believe it our not, self-promotion.

Nice.

So, if you want to take the "shameless" out of self-promotion, remember two keys:

Don't let your past fears stand in the way.

Don't "promote," transfer your love.

Because if you don't make a name or yourself, someone will make one for you.

Let me suggest this...

For a copy of the list called "99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren't One," send an e-mail to scott@hellomynameisscott.com and I'll send YOU the list for free!

Lovely, just lovely.

Some organization has decided to glom onto our Convention and has acquired a copy of an industry supplier list, and is now making pestering phone calls to potential exhibitors at our 2009 Convention. They are calling and saying they can get a lower room rate - although we have learned they can not guarantee the lower rate. We've asked them to stop, and they apparently refuse to stop, so we have a problem.

ICCFA has already negotiated a very low room rate of $149 per night at Mandalay Bay for reservations made by February 28. This is a great deal, because the normal rate and the advertised rate after February 28 will be $259 per night.

The company that is calling our suppliers has nothing to do with ICCFA. Here is the notice that went out in the ICCFA email news blast today:

The ICCFA has learned that a company by the name of "Convention Expo Travel" is soliciting ICCFA members claiming to offer reduced room rates at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino for the ICCFA Convention dates, April 20-23. This company is NOT affiliated with the ICCFA or Mandalay Bay.

The Better Business Bureau has given Convention Expo Travel an “F” rating, based on a range on A+ to F. Therefore, the ICCFA urges extreme caution in doing business with this company. For more information on this company, go to http://southernnevada.bbb.org and click on “Check out a Business.”

The best way to reserve your room is to click here or call 1.877.632.7000 and identify yourself as an ICCFA attendee or mention discount code SCBM09.

Click here to learn more about Convention Expo Travel, the company that has been making these calls.

Our attorney tells me we cannot call Convention Expo Travel a "scam" because what they are doing is, technically, not illegal. But our supplier members who have received calls from Convention Expo Travel are saying, essentially, that Convention Expo Travel sucks because they are pestering ICCFA members and not offering a solid value proposition. So I am going to go out on a limb and say that in my opinion Convention Expo Travel is a loser company.

Got that, everyone? I think Convention Expo Travel is a dog with fleas. Lay down with those losers at your own risk.