building the brand: BTS of emcee'ing the southeasts largest tech conference in ATL | ep.19

You remember me? Yesterday? Not done with them yet. Okay. All right. Wanna get a mansion, a jacuzzi, a theater to watch my movies, couple whips and lots of fancy things, the kids they call the Goonies. What's up, dude? Hey, man. How was your morning? Uh, it's good. Um, just FYI, don't have 2 bags of Doritos and spicy chips before you go to bed because you wake up at 2:30 in the morning with indigestion for about 30 minutes. Good to know. Yeah, so boy's a little tired. But we're here prepping for emceeing, and we're gonna try to be funny today. So are you researching each person that you're introducing right now? Yeah, so I kind of— so this is my 3rd year emceeing Render, and the past few years, I think there's— I think there's different levels of emceeing, right? The last few years has been a little bit more of like just run-and-gun, which I'm good at, But when I emceed Kent C. Dodds' conference this past year, and I think it was March, was it March? In Salt Lake City, I had to do, I had to work with Bree Hall, and because there was 2 of us, and so we had to be a little more strategic about how we presented people. And so I was a little bit more intentional there about like taking notes and stuff, and it like really worked out. I felt like my flow was really good. I felt very organized. And so I'm kind of doing that now. So I've had a lot of people ask me kind of what I do to emcee. So the first thing is, is I get, so the Render app is really cool. It has all the, obviously, sessions out, but for me, I'm putting it all in an Apple Note to have it all in front of me. Basically, I summarize the talk that's in the app, 'cause everybody can just read the app. They don't need to know the whole summary. I research the people who are speaking, make sure I know their titles, their names, and then kind of do like 4 to 5 bullet points So I can get up on stage, hit it real quick, and then introduce them. There's not a lot of time in between sessions. I mean, a lot of the sessions on the main stage today are like 15, 20 minutes, so I got to be quick. So I just want to have a really good idea, very clear, very concise introduction. So that's what I'm doing now. What's up? Hey, man. Oh, I play that trick. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Who let you in with that one? Hey, hey. That's her. Did you get it on camera? Like, I gotta try to coordinate. So like right now I'm like trying to coordinate. Justin wanted to go 5 minutes later, so we're doing 5 minutes later for Justin. And then we gotta fix what does Justin want, a mic, like a handheld or lapel? So we're trying to figure that out. Then Kelsey's after Justin. Kelsey wants a lapel, but then he wants a song that's played at a certain moment. So we're trying to figure that out. Then we're working on transitions. to the 3rd panel with Selena, one of the hosts. She's actually moderating the panel, so then I gotta bring that transition back up. So the transition I planned has gotta change. So yeah, it's welcome to life of the— welcome to life of an MC. There's a lot, there's a lot of people. Hopefully they laugh at my jokes. There's a— what's up, y'all? Hey. Hey, hey, 6 people said hey, that's cool. Hey! Hey, let's do that one more time. What's going on, everybody? Hey! Yeah! This man does not need an introduction. Everybody knows him. Give it up for the CEO of Render, Justin Samuels! Thank you so much. Hey, bro. Appreciate that. What's up, everybody? How y'all doing today? Hey, if you need a job, go sign up to torque.dev. So, Kelsey, I appreciate you teeing me up right there. So if you need a job, go sign up at torque.dev. First one, first kind of block done. People so far, people seem to be vibing. It was great, great conversation. This afternoon we're going to bring the heat and then we'll go stage 3 tomorrow. Don't hit me, son of a hoe. I'll see you. True. I'm just Jaleel, man. One of the hoes. But this guy here. Yeah, 3 years in a row together. You know what, 3 years in a row together, man. Crazy. It's like the Three Musketeers, but it's just 2. This is Jordan Pippen right here. I'm Jordan Pippen. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah. Dude, pretty cool. Introducing Grammy-nominated, somebody who moved up to Nashville to do music, and now I'm at a tech conference, do tech. I'm introducing a Grammy-nominated artist, David Banner. Pretty cool. From stage to the boardroom, leveraging your brand to excel in different locations. Again, I'm a big, I'm a huge, big, big fan of personal branding. All these gentlemen on stage that are coming up are obviously as well. So I want to do a quick introduction. So today we got editor Okla Jones from Essence Magazine, Daelin Gault, who's senior director of Black Ambition and former president of Jet Magazine. We have Justin Samuels, you obviously know him. And then we obviously have— I just, I'm super pumped— Grammy-nominated artist, producer, actor, and entrepreneur David Banner. Y'all come up to the stage. Super pumped for this. Let's go. Let's give it up. I'll give y'all a quick note on David Banner. Bri, stay up on stage real quick. So I want to give, I want to give Brianna a shout out here for a second. So Brianna and I work together and I want to give her a shout out because that was an— you just crushed that from a moderation perspective. And she's been challenging herself to put herself more out there on the internet and just trying to get better at speaking. And incredible. I've seen the work. You're incredible. So anyway, I just want to give you a shout out. And be nice. He's my boss. As far as I'm aware, that concludes day one, two. What we calling today? Yo, I know that. Day day two of Render concludes. Y'all go have fun tonight. Be safe. We'll see y'all tomorrow. I'm I'm seeing stage three tomorrow, so that'll be a good fun stage. See y'all. Getting forgot to see of LinkedIn. For real? Yeah. Let's go. Did you get that on camera? Neighbor got you a LinkedIn. I love it. I love it. Huge compliment. Thank you. Taylor, what are we doing? Man, we are— I'm dead. I'm dead. I know. I have a video of you walking off the stage. Yeah. I mean, listen, I mean, super grateful. It is. I mean, I knew what I was getting myself into, but like, you just don't realize how much like on top of it you have to be and just how much energy you have to give. So like, my vocal cords hurt. I gotta get some hot tea. I gotta stop talking. Like, anyways, but today was great. I mean, I had somebody call me the Nate Bargatze of LinkedIn. Um, you know, I was invited to the cookout. Like, people— I had like probably 100 connections on LinkedIn. So I mean, it was incredible. Amazing day. Super grateful. But I think we're gonna lay low tonight. I think we're gonna lay low tonight. Oh man, there he is! Hey! Just in time. Hey, shout out. Hey, we gotta get the jersey in. Shout out Ryan Winn and the crew for hooking us up with hockey jerseys. Man, it looks so good. I gotta say, I just got a tweet from somebody that says you guys have the coolest swag. So we're doing it. We're doing it. I want the best swag program in the game, so. Hey buddy, it's fine. It's a fine jersey. He was out till 2 AM. I'm a little sleepy, but I'm feeling pretty good. Oh, sleepy boy. Yeah, what the hell happened? Oh bro, wouldn't you like to know? We're at the Torque booths, so this is really cool. Um, it's a great idea by Render to have. I think like, I think normal booths are fine, nothing wrong with it. I like what, what we did in Shout out to Brianna for heading this up. So basically what we did is this is just a place where people can come hang out, catch up on emails. It's called the Email Bar. So come and work. Every table is equipped with like a power station. We got some, obviously some Torque like stickers and keycaps on here. But, you know, Jason was here yesterday. I was obviously emceeing all day, but Jason said like the conversation was great. It really kind of like, it's kind of the whole Torque mantra of like meeting people where they're at, like building community. You have to meet people where they're at. And so we're meeting them where they're at here, right? We're not trying to sell anything. We're not trying to push anything. You come hang out. I was told that like a lot of people are like, hey, like what's what's torque? Like what is this? And so it was a very organic conversation. So shout out to Brianna for heading this up. Shout out to the Angelos and kind of the ops team for heading this up. But I think it looks great. So over Christmas, I got super like in depth with like Marcus Maloney, Mitch in New York. Ross McKay with Cadence, which is like a magnesium salt mineral drink. George Heat with 24/7. Bruno Casanovas with Nude Project, where I just went to his store in Barcelona. And I was looking at it, I was thinking, all these guys have built a community based off a t-shirt. I was like, listen, that's huge. Trying to build a community off a t-shirt, that's crazy. We have tried to build community off something that will change your life, which is a job. For sure, for sure. So if we just have like good merch, like, it'll be so easy. I told my boss, I said, I think we could build such a strong community that our merch sales could be an entire business. For sure. And he was like, I'm not ready for that quite yet. I said, no, that's fine. But I was like, I really think we can do it. So, so that's kind of my vision because like, I, I want to wear cool stuff. Yeah. Oh yeah. Um, I do want to use this time to network. Right? So I'm a big networker. I don't know if you've kind of gone through the— I emceed the main stage yesterday. It was really big on networking and community and making sure you meet people. So everybody pull out their phones. Most of y'all probably already on it tuning me out, which is fine. Open up your phones, open up LinkedIn. If you don't have LinkedIn, you're in trouble. And then just connect real fast, just real fast, 30 seconds with the person to the left or right of you. Just say hey. Just connect. There's a QR code. Just say hey real fast. Thirty seconds. So dude, did this just happen? Yeah, you're kidding me. No, they gave you like they came. So they came up with their own scope for the students, and I'm taking it to the city. I'm just trying to make sure people eat in 2050, dude, and using tech to do it. Yeah, yeah. So so like so like what's Like, like, like, yeah, talk about it, talk about it. Oh man, uh, so I started working— first off, introduce yourself, introduce yourself. Uh, Malcolm Adams. Malcolm Adams, there you go. All right, they call me the Purposeful Economist. Yeah, yeah. Uh, just leveraging policy to create jobs. Tech drives every industry, so first there, uh, making sure that all the applications and use cases are in alignment with the funding that they have for job creation. And you're talking about at Georgia Tech or— no, no, just nationally. Nationally? Yes, I got national guidelines standards adopted and approved by the U.S. Department of Labor back in 2021. Holy smokes. So I pivoted into R&D in 2020 because of COVID Okay. I smashed my guitar basically with my tech company. I was doing managed services in IT. Yeah. And just started building and focusing more on, you know, just helping people. Yeah, helping people. So what is this? That is an urban and innovative ag Slash energy project that I'm doing in Stonecrest, Georgia. This is not-for-profit stuff, right? Georgia Tech signed the dot. So I think I think what's awesome about this is I love that people want to share their wins like with us. Like awesome. Like that. Like he tracked us down. I don't know. Congrats, Malcolm. That's awesome. Very grateful. Very grateful that people want to share cool stuff with us. He was so excited. Dude, dude, the ink hadn't even dried yet. I love hosting the main stage. It's a different energy, but I love hosting these side stages too. It's just as much fun, kind of a different way. Um, so yeah, off to take pictures and, uh, it's gonna be a good one. You remember me? Yesterday? Not done with them yet. Okay. All right. All right. I do this every talk. Listen, every speaker works really, really hard. So everybody stand up. Everybody stand up. Everybody stand up and give it up for our speaker. Let's go. Hello. Yeah. Okay. We gotta get done here. Render 2025. Yeah. We're done. We're done. Hey, that, that. That was quick. Yeah, it's happened quick. Real quick. Fun. Render, thank you so much. It was great. I think really people really enjoyed the booth. Oh yeah, we got a lot of traffic. Absolutely. How about that? And what's there to talk about? People were just chilling. Like, this is a really cool place for them to like sit and decompress, and it gave us an opportunity to talk to them like, yeah, really organic presentation of what we're trying to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, hockey jerseys were a hit. Yep. Yeah, they look great. We overgave away hockey jerseys. Yep, that's my fault. Yeah, but people love the hockey jersey. It was a success. I had multiple people say, you guys were everywhere. Yep, super swag. Everybody loved the swag. Yeah, everybody liked knowing that we were here to help them too, not like try to peddle something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I think, I think us not having a booth where we shoved like what we do down, I think was, was, was a good change of pace and I think people are big fans of it, so yeah. Yeah.