Thanks to Mikal Belicove
for the photo!

Mark was one of the most engaging speakers I’ve ever seen. He speaks his mind. And his mind is sharp. Makes for a great 75 minutes. He didn’t use any slides. After polling the audience for a couple of minutes to begin with, he realized it was a different group than he had anticipated, and he adjusted his remarks on the fly, flawlessly.

• You need to be brutally honest in what you do. As soon as we know that people are listening, we start putting filters on ourselves. Not only do you need to be honest, but you have to put the work into things you post. Good old fashioned research and work combined with honesty is what makes for a strong online opinion and personal brand.
• Technology changes so fast in today’s world, you have a HUGE advantage if you can out-work others.
• There is no shortcut for the desire to gain other people’s attention. Find something and give it a shot.

A key thread in his remarks was about hard work. I can definitely related to that. You take a team that talks about ‘working smart’ and give me another team that just plain ‘works hard’ and I’ll beat you every time with the hard work camp.

Someone in the audience also asked Mark which companies he’d buy if he had the money. First, he said Facebook. Second, he said Verizon (because of their fiber to homes). I’ve put off joining Facebook for a while now. After hearing the quality of Mark’s thoughts, and then hearing him say he’d buy the company if he had the money, I signed up for Facebook immediately upon returning to UT. And Mark is one of my first friends. (I’m in there along with 4,459 other people on his profile, and I’d bet it was one of his assistants that approved my request.) So for all you Facebook Fans out there, Mark pushed me out into the hype with the rest of you. And since I’m now looking to build my Friend Kingdom, feel free to invite me. jeremy “at” jeremyhanks.com is where you’ll find me.

Anyway, Mark did a super job. More than made up for some of the more mediocre sessions I attended during the conference. You should all subscribe to Mark’s blog at http://www.blogmaverick.com/. You might not like what he says, but it will be brutally honest and well thought out.

So for causing me to finally jump on the Facebook bandwagon, giving me some amazing tips about blogging, and being a likable, incredibly smart, and straight-shooting guy, Mark Cuban is my new hero.