#xerocon 2012

One of the reasons we’re in New Zealand at the moment is to attend Xero’s 3rd annual NZ partner conference, this year in Auckland. We got off the plane at 4.30am and after a couple of hours sorting out our work visa renewals for our return to the States we headed into meetings, conference set up, a workshop with our solution partners, a staff dinner then the conference and awards gala dinner yesterday.

This year a few Xeroes from outside of New Zealand attended – as well as us and Jamie from San Francisco there were guys from the UK office and some from Australia. This was a highlight for me – like an annual pilgrimage of long-time Xeroes who get to see each other and the rest of the team once a year – I hope it continues.

The conference day and night were full on for me – taking photos and live-tweeting and posting but I did get time to marvel at the size of the crowd – 400 of our partners attended and it was quite humbling to think they’re all there because of our product. I particularly liked meeting people I’d only previously ‘met’ on Twitter and LinkedIn and basked in their great compliments about how I run our Twitter account and my wonderful calm and diplomatic answers to some of the forum sites. One of my fans was even wearing orange shoes. I felt pretty amazing which is just what I needed as the day started out with me feeling like I was useless at my job when someone barked orders at me about what I was supposed to do that day.

The Mister and Sara both had speaking spots.

Kara came over from San Francisco to represent her company at the conference and it was good to see her after 3 days apart!

I hope we get to come back next year, or better yet build up enough partners to have one in the States or the UK that we can attend!