Photo by Capturedcharms (c)

Last week, I had the pleasure of welcoming Mark Horvath to Tulsa. Yet another example of the power of relationships. My LA #140Conf friend Marla Schulman who writes for the MurphyUSA blog and is sharing Mark’s road trip with their readers mentioned that Mark would be near Tulsa, the wheels were in motion. Fortunately, the #SMTulsa Social Media Summit was already scheduled and Mark agreed to be a part of our event.

As soon as I heard that Mark was going to join us, I went in full Party Aficionado mode. For those of you who have worked with me, you know what that means.

I’m grateful to the Hyatt Regency who’s GM agreed via Linked in to host Mark’s visit. The Salvation Army agreed to give Mark a tour of their Center of Hope, and I set up a meeting between Mark and Bernadette McQueen, who was also once homeless and now runs and outreach program at the Tulsa Day Center.

Mark was even able to join the #SOBcon Twitter Chat using the Salvation Army’s Wifi.

During the tour of the Center for hope, we met homeless single dad Mike and his six (and a half) year old daughter Taylor. Taylor was such a mature little girl, and her one wish broke all of our hearts.

I was able to schedule a last minute #GasupTweetup at a MurphyUSA before Mark left town and we were able to shoot a quick video recapping his trip.

Follow Mark’s entire trip to Tulsa via Storify

Remember the Thumbsup for Homeless meetup? I’m happy to say that we were able to hand Mark the USB drives we collected during our August meetup.

Cheryl Lawson of Party Aficionado and Founder of Social Media Tulsa has been nominated for a Tulsey award. Please help us win this award for Cheryl. Vote daily through November 2, 2011 http://thetulseys.com/vote/

2010 International CES Earned Top Spot in TSE Gold 100 Rankings

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)® today announced that the 2010 International CES® was named both the largest tradeshow and the tradeshow with the highest economic impact by Trade Show Executive (TSE) Magazine.

CEA was awarded the highly coveted number one spot in TSE’s Gold 100 Rankings of 2010. CES has earned top honors as the largest annual tradeshow in each of the four years of the Gold 100 Award’s existence.

“For the fourth year in a row, no show was able to unseat the International CES as the largest annual trade show in the U.S.,” said Darlene Gudea, president of Trade Show Executive Media Group. “CES held a commanding lead, spanning 586,000 more net square feet of exhibit space than the next annual show on the list.” Gudea noted that CES, with its significant exhibitor and attendee participation, enriched the Las Vegas economy with more than $119 million of new dollars, easily earning the distinction of the show with the highest economic impact of 2010.

The 2012 International CES will run January 10-13 in Las Vegas, Nevada and is expected to span more than 1.6 million net square feet of exhibit space, with more than 2,700 exhibitors from 140 countries. The 2012 show looks to bring in more than 140,000 attendees, with some 30,000 from outside of the U.S., to experience more than 20,000 product launches across cutting edge technology categories such as; 3D, mobile DTV, tablets, apps, connected TVs embedded internet, green technology and more.

“We are thrilled to again top TSE’s Gold 100 Rankings as the leader in the tradeshow industry,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CEA. “The International CES prides itself on being the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow and generating business for the global CE industry.”

Tradeshows underscore the importance of face to face interactions. CES attendees collectively save 700 million miles of business travel – by taking one trip to meet all their current and future customers. Each CES attendee conducts an average of 12 onsite meetings with key contacts such as buyers, investors, analysts and media, highlighting the effectiveness of attending the International CES.

More than 200 conference sessions and 500 speakers are planned for the 2012 CES, spanning industry topics from entertainment content and distracted driving to social media and the connected home. For more information on the 2012 International CES, please visit www.CESweb.org.

I’m excited to head back to CES 2012, I’m downloading the app now to start making plans for the sessions and exhibitors I want to see.

If you’re going to CES this year, I’d love to meet you.

Scan this code with your mobile phone to access the official 2012 CES mobile app now! Or point your mobile browser to http://m.core-apps.com/2012CES.

I’ve decided to start a blog series entitled Ask Party Aficionado.  Write your questions in the comment section or email me. cheryl @partyaficionado .com

Questions can be about

Event planning

Social Media

Mobile

What’s happening in Tech

Self Publishing

Or anything you think I can answer.

Need more background on me?  visit the About section of this website

or check out my Google Plus profile. http://gplus.to/cheryl

I’m so excited to announce the next generation of the event planning tools Android App.  The app still has the budget calculator and the meeting space calculator, but now we’ve added Catch.com integration.

Catch makes it simple to capture, organize and retrieve the ideas, experiences and data that are important to you. Your information is always accessible and always current, whether you use a mobile smartphone, a tablet or the web, because Catch lives in the cloud. (Yeah Cloud!)

I posted the new app link on Google+   October 12 and one of my G+ Peeps wrote the very first review of the app.  Here’s what Leigh had to say.  I hope you like it too.

Leigh Henderson  -  Oct 12, 2011  -  Public

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Event Planning Tools App for Android