Wowsers, What a Week

Most of us have role models, those people in our lives who we aspire to follow.  In terms of our careers, these role models are often the experts who came before us.  The ones who wrote the big books, discovered the great formula or developed the best procedures.  And once in awhile, if we’re truly lucky, we get to see our role model in person, maybe attend a lecture, or watch a demonstration.  If we are amazingly lucky we may even get to meet our role model.  I am amazingly lucky.  :)

  That’s him, Jeremy Phillips.  If you don’t believe I met him and took that picture myself, you can check out the group picture on Afro-IP.  I was so incredibly lucky, he even set aside some time from his busy schedule to meet with me!

Besides being one of the foremost experts on intellectual property and one of the most respected scholars in the world, Jeremy is also one vampire of a nice guy.  I think that’s the part I admire the most.  He’s kind, extremely considerate and always cheerful.  (Unless you trick him into attending a poorly done haughty Ameri-centric panel.)

I ran into Jeremy often during the conference, partly due to some similar interests.  I also met a number of other wonderful people including the founder of Afro-IP, Darren, another Afro-IP contributor, Paul, and a number of Yoruba attorneys who I startled by greeting them in Yoruba.  …hee hee…  The conference was amazing, people from all over the world.  Singapore, Malaysia, Nigeria, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the UK, Dubai, Switzerland, Romania, Cameroon, Russia… that’s just people I met!  And I learned so much.  I can’t wait for next year’s meeting in Boston. :D