« Helpful Resource | Main | The Way I Live »
Mr. Opportunity
By Sean Foran | September 28, 2010
So, I wrote roughly two years ago now about Mr. Opportunity, and his habit of kicking in doors here at Canisius. And here I am, writing about him again. Unoriginal? Perhaps. But it’s still true, and I feel like recent events have warranted a new post on the matter.
You see, when I first arrived as a freshman, getting the opportunity to help a real live professional theatre company backstage was pretty darn cool. In the two years since then, I’ve been given a bunch of great opportunities. I formed an organization on campus. I’ve worked with the President of Information Services on campus. I routinely write software that is used by the rest of the campus, and my employers treat me like a co-worker. I thought Mr. Opportunity had already taken up residence on my couch.
And then I had a chat at Spot Coffee with Kevin Purdy. Though I suppose that deserves some background.
While I was home for summer break, I decided to write software for my phone. For fun. Because that’s how messed up I am; things like that amuse me. So I wrote it, and went ahead and released it, for free, for anyone else who might be amused by it. Of course, because I made absolutely no attempt to market it or advertise it, it spread like wildfire. One thing led to another, and Lifehacker (think the New York Times of tech blogs) decided it would be a good idea to cover the application. Which led to over 8,000 users. But I digress.
I got back to school, and everything was pretty much normal. And one day, I started to get curious as to how people at Lifehacker found my little app in the first place. So I took a look at the author of the post, and found it to be a Senior Editor at Lifehacker, Kevin Purdy. And so I Googled Kevin, looking for ties between him and my app, confused as to how he stumbled across it. And apparently, Kevin lives in Buffalo. Go figure, right?
So, naturally, I sent Kevin an email, pointing out this weird twist of fate. He emailed back, asking if I wanted to meet at Spot to talk about geeky tech stuff. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Kevin, as awesome as he is, does not warrant a post of this magnitude, though. Oh yes, there’s more. There are these wonderful conferences call “TED Talks“. TED Talks are one of the most prestigious meeting grounds for the smartest people in the world to trade thoughts and ideas. The TED organisation has this cool program, TEDx, that lets communities produce their own, independent TED conferences. And Buffalo happens to have been approved for one. And, apparently, I am now on the planning committee for it.
Next week, I’m inviting Obama to breakfast. Just to see what happens.
– Mr. Charming
Topics: Sean '12 | No Comments »