Cory Booker, US Senator from New Jersey, delivered the keynote address at Affiliate Summit East 2008 in Boston on Monday, August 11, 2008.
Lots of people thought it was an odd choice when we announced Cory Booker would be keynoting at Affiliate Summit. At the time he was the Mayor of Newark, NJ and wasn’t yet a household name.
But I’d met him back in 2001 through a mutual acquaintance who was looking for somebody to help run his website during his first mayoral run. I happened to be a political junkie who was willing to create and run his website for free, so I was “hired”.
Anyhow, during that election cycle, which was captured in a fascinating documentary called Street Fight, I got to know Cory and see him speak many times.
I was thoroughly impressed by his speaking style and figured he would be inspirational and challenging for our audience.
As a side note, Cory became a Twitter superstar less than a year after keynoting Affiliate Summit. When he was interviewed about it, he would say how Ashton Kutcher encouraged him to get on Twitter.
However, as we were walking out of Affiliate Summit after his keynote, Missy Ward and I pushed Cory to get on Twitter, and he joined that month. Whatever, Ashton.
Attending keynote speeches can be valuable because you can gain and implement some knowledge right away or act on inspiration from the talk, as well as have the unique opportunity to get face time with the speaker.