Travelling the world ain’t all that glamorous ya know!

The jet lag, interrupted cash flow (I’m getting better at doing expenses more regularly now), the late nights, rich food and being away from the wife (although some see that as a bonus – I don’t though, because she reads my blog), all balance out the nice hotels, air miles and exotic passport stamps.

I’m certainly not moaning. Not at all. But at the end of the day I realise I’m in a privileged position and make sure I pay for it through sheer hard work. At a 3 day conference I’ll be up working at 7am and rarely stop until 10.30pm or……much, much later!

This morning I’m off to Seattle to see the family, spend a couple of days in the office in Redmond, and then it’s off to LA for the Digital Hollywood conference.

I was just covering the show on the blog and through Twitter, but I’ve now been asked to speak on:

Advertising Accountability: Metrics and Analytics around Video, Social Media, Broadband and Mobile

With my background in adCenter and the work we’ve been doing recently on multi-screen advertising, Engagement Mapping and LookingGlass, I should be able to contribute intelligently to the conversation. One hopes.

I am looking forward to staying at the hotel – Lowes Santa Monica – photo above.

And I’ll be meeting up with my friends Dave and Ilyse Mckimmie who work in the movie business for Fox and Sundance.

Dave actually got me on the set of Austin Powers Gold Member to watch Mike Myers doing his thing. I’ll never forget it!

I’ve written about our participation on the blog. There are 15 of us speaking which is great for Microsoft.

In the last 5 years we’ve come along way from being that software company that dabbles on the internet, to being recognised as one of the leading players in digital.

As Ashley Highfield told me recently, we really are getting our Mojo back!