691 Brianna Rubino: Live from ASCII

[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast and we are live in Boston at ASCII Edge and I'm joined by a podcast rookie. Our friend Brianna Rubino from the ASCII group is in the house. How are you?

[Brianna Rubino]
I'm doing great. Uncle Marv, thanks for having me.

[Uncle Marv]
It's not going to bite you. So we're here at ASCII and I should probably start off by saying we are celebrating 40 years of ASCII, so this is one of those tours that should be pretty exciting throughout. So how have things been?

[Brianna Rubino]
Things have been great. So we're on event number six here in Boston, Massachusetts, so we're super excited to be here. It's been a great day so far.

We're on day two of our event and obviously celebrating the 40th anniversary is pretty special. So we're excited for a lot of things to come, especially our ASCII cup at the end of the year, which will be in Tampa Bay. I'm a bit biased because Tampa is my hometown, so I'm excited to welcome everybody to the Bay Area.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, and Florida is my home state. I'm on the other side there. I will be attending and it should be pretty big humdinger this year, shouldn't it?

[Brianna Rubino]
Yeah, absolutely. So we've got a lot of really great things planned. We're going to throw it back a little bit to the 80s.

It'll be a nice little celebration. We're going to go back to the future, if you will. So we're excited for that party.

Oh, yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Is there going to be a DeLorean on site?

[Brianna Rubino]
I don't know. There could be. There could be.

[Uncle Marv]
Mm hmm. Very interesting. All right.

Let's see if there's any Doc Brown wannabes showing up there with all the white hairs.

[Brianna Rubino]
There is. There's some potential. You never know.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Brianna let's talk real quick. I know this is your first time on the show here, but we've known each other for a few years.

Your official position is?

[Brianna Rubino]
Director of events for the ASCII group.

[Uncle Marv]
So that includes the cup.

[Brianna Rubino]
It does.

[Uncle Marv]
What other events does it include?

[Brianna Rubino]
So the ASCII EDGE event, so it's a nine event series throughout the year all over North America. So eight events in the U.S. and one event in Canada. That kind of includes the...

[Uncle Marv]
Do we count Canada as one of the nine, really?

[Brianna Rubino]
You do. Arguably one of my favorite events, actually.

[Uncle Marv]
That's for Chad.

[Brianna Rubino]
And then, of course, in the year, it's obviously planning those events, but also looking forward to the future, too. So we're planning events already for 2025. We have a really, really great calendar coming up for 2025 as well.

So we'll be able to release that information to everybody pretty soon. So we're excited to hit a couple of new markets, some that we may not have gone to previously. So we'll release that information soon.

Little teaser for everybody.

[Uncle Marv]
We can't sneak that out now?

[Brianna Rubino]
Not quite yet.

[Uncle Marv]
Oh. Okay. All right.

So new places that we haven't been. East Coast or West Coast? Can I ask that question?

[Brianna Rubino]
Yeah. That's a good question. There is a new East Coast city.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Brianna Rubino]
A new East Coast city that we're going to end the year with, actually.

[Uncle Marv]
I got all excited because I was thinking Fort Lauderdale, but you guys have already been to Fort Lauderdale. Okay. You guys did introduce a new series, the Wine Tasting Thingamabob.

Was that you guys? No? No.

All right. I was trying to rope in Bradley Gross, but I guess that didn't work. You don't know who Bradley Gross is?

[Brianna Rubino]
Oh, right. Let's make it easy. Bradley Gross.

I don't know who Bradley Gross is.

[Uncle Marv]
Come on.

[Brianna Rubino]
Yeah. The Taste Series.

[Uncle Marv]
The Taste Series. Oh, that's not you. All right.

Sorry. Let's move on. So what else has been going on then, if not that?

[Brianna Rubino]
If not that, just a lot of planning for future, a lot of focus on the ASCII Cup to really bring that celebration home to end the year.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Well, what I should have asked, since we're celebrating 40 years, there's got to be something special. Is there not like a big, huge 40th blowout party?

[Brianna Rubino]
There is. So that's going to be kind of a culmination of this year's events plus the 40th birthday party, so to speak, at the very end of the year for the ASCII Cup. So our event will be in St. Pete at the Hilton Hotel, right on the Bayfront area. And then just a couple of blocks away, we have the after party at a place called Goodnight John Boy.

[Uncle Marv]
Goodnight John Boy.

[Brianna Rubino]
Yes. Oh. Yes.

So it's decked out and all the retro fairs. So we're going to bring the party there right afterward.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Well, let's switch gears and let me ask you about these events, getting these all set up. People think it's probably easy to just roll out and list a hotel and people show up.

But you guys do a lot with getting the speakers lined up, the guests, the keynotes and stuff. I'm going to ask this weird question. When you reach out to an ASCII person and say, hey, would you speak?

Like Don Sizer always says yes. But what about some of the others? Is it easy finding these speakers?

[Brianna Rubino]
Yeah. I mean, I think knowing the nature of events and trying to figure out the best approach to come up with content that's going to be relevant, having those peers, being able to highlight them in their business, being able to highlight their knowledge, I think is a great incentive on both ends for kind of a mutually beneficial experience. So I think those conversations, at least to my knowledge, have always gone pretty well.

It's a great opportunity for them to showcase themselves as business owners, share their knowledge from their perspective and be able to interact with their peers in that setting.

[Uncle Marv]
And of course, you're on the fun side of ASCII, so that makes it easy.

[Brianna Rubino]
Yeah. Yeah. That's very true.

[Uncle Marv]
As long as they're not putting in their little, you know, diva requests for, you know, can I have wine in my room when I show up?

[Brianna Rubino]
It's not necessarily that. They're all pretty great. I've been very fortunate to be on this side of the world to interact with our members and our speakers.

And from that standpoint, so easy going group.

[Uncle Marv]
So what year is this? Three, four, five for you?

[Brianna Rubino]
This is my third year.

[Uncle Marv]
Third year.

[Brianna Rubino]
Yeah. And how does this... It seems like it was just yesterday.

[Uncle Marv]
Wow. Yeah.

[Brianna Rubino]
Yeah. Time flies.

[Uncle Marv]
It's because they go fast. They go fast.

[Brianna Rubino]
They really do.

[Uncle Marv]
So I was going to ask, because you were doing events before you showed up at ASCII. So how do ASCII events rate compared to some of the other jobs you had before?

[Brianna Rubino]
Yeah. That's a really good question. So I think what I love so much about ASCII is that, you know, we always use the phrase traveling circus for lack of better analogy, but it is in a lot of ways.

So it's, you know, the same cast of characters.

[Uncle Marv]
Are you saying that because of the ASCII side or the member side?

[Brianna Rubino]
I think it's very much a group effort, right? I think everybody contributes to the traveling circus in a lot of ways. So it's really cool to be able to see a lot of the same vendors in our community from city to city to city.

So it's fun to build on those, excuse me, to build on those relationships. Same thing with our ASCII members. We have kind of this, you know, circuit of traveling members that come to multiple cities.

So it's, you know, it's really fun to see that.

[Uncle Marv]
Speaking of members that travel all over the place, do you guys have a list of like who's attended the most?

[Brianna Rubino]
We don't yet, but I would be, I would be pretty curious to see.

[Uncle Marv]
We need a research department to find out because I want to see how many like Job, you know, has shown up to over the years.

[Brianna Rubino]
Yeah. Maybe we'll do some fun like superlatives for the 40th to highlight some of our long-term members and even, you know, things like, things like that attended the most ASCII events over the years. That would be kind of fun.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, that'll work. That'll work.

Well, Brianna, how's it been?

[Brianna Rubino]
What's up?

[Uncle Marv]
Sitting here and sitting here in general.

[Brianna Rubino]
I love this. My first podcast. It's great.

[Uncle Marv]
Not as bad as you thought. Is it?

[Brianna Rubino]
No. I, you know, I get a little bit of stage fright whenever I see a microphone in front of me. I'm very much a behind the scenes, like logistics gal.

So being in front of a microphone is a little intimidating, but that's a great question.

[Uncle Marv]
You can see people are walking by, not even paying attention. So no big worries.

[Brianna Rubino]
Very true.

[Uncle Marv]
Thank you for hanging out.

[Brianna Rubino]
Yeah. Thank you for having me.

[Uncle Marv]
And I look forward to the rest of the events and, of course, the ASCII Cup in Tampa.

[Brianna Rubino]
Yes, absolutely. We're excited for it. Ready to see everybody.

[Uncle Marv]
So now that you've kind of teased this party, it better be big.

[Brianna Rubino]
It's going to be big. It's going to be amazing.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. That's it, folks. Thank you very much for tuning in and we'll be back with more from ASCII Live in Boston.

See you then. Holla!