I'm in a kind of unusual job position at work - senior but not management and no one reports to me. So unlike my other senior colleagues, I've never had an opportunity for the company to send me to any other of their offices. Because I work for HomeAway which is owned by Expedia and both companies have offices all over the world. :-)

Until very recently.

HomeAway has a regular professional one-day seminar called Product Academy where they get in an expert from outside the company and explore a topic. Attendees must apply, sending in a pre-work assignment which is scored and the top 150 get accepted. This one is about story-telling and The Hero's Journey. And the guest convener is a writer for Pixar! The pre-work assignment involved 12 miniature-essay questions after reading Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey and watching Up and Finding Nemo.

So I will be in Austin, Texas on 2 May for Product Academy, plus a a few days before and after to meet with other colleagues and basically work there. And because I can, I will be spending two days in San Francisco beforehand, mostly to meet up with a friend.

I don't think I'll have much time to see anyone in SF, but I will have a weekend to myself in Austin.

Wade.