Save the Date! Announcing the 2012 World Domination Summit

Friends and readers,

Three months ago, we brought together 500 people from a dozen countries for our inaugural World Domination Summit. You can see what it looked like in this brand-new video recap:

(You can also see thousands of photos from the weekend over here. A few of them are below, in case you missed the earlier recaps.)

Opening party at the Portland Art Museum

Pam Slim’s Keynote Address

Chillaxin’ in the Hammock Lounge

Attendee art from Mark Silver’s session

Travel hackers meet on the lawn

Jonathan Fields unveils his greatest work ever

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Today I’m proud to announce that #WDS2012 will be held in Portland from July 6-8.

This time, world domination can no longer be contained to a single art museum. Instead, we’re moving to the famed Newmark Theatre for our main stage events, and a number of additional venues for (expanded) workshops, breakout sessions, and meetups.

We have bands coming in from faraway lands. Our Bollywood DJ will return for an encore performance. The world’s finest hammocks will be hung throughout the lobbies. We’ll have yoga in the park, a 200-person photo walk through the Pearl District, a mass book signing with 20 authors, and an attempt to set some sort of Guinness world record.

It will be big… but not TOO big. A mobile site will allow attendees to connect with each other based on shared interests and location, ensuring that plenty of small-group gatherings can take place. A “highly-sensitive person” lounge will welcome the introverts among us.

Perhaps most importantly, the event will remain non-commercial and non-profit. I don’t think sponsors are evil, but I don’t want them for WDS.

But wait, I’m getting ahead of things…

The Registration Process

We’ll have plenty of interest, and I know tickets will go quickly. Last year we sold out five months in advance, even without a real plan. (Thanks to those who trusted us to come through.)

By the time the actual weekend rolled around, tickets were being scalped on eBay for a $300 markup. An unknown number of people without tickets came to Portland just to hang out. More than 60% of first-year attendees pre-registered to return next year.

In an attempt to keep things less manic, we’ll do registration in two phases this time: Wave I starts this Thursday, and Wave II will be in January 2012. (We’ll give first choice of workshop registration to Wave I and first-year pre-registered attendees.)

I’m thrilled to produce this weekend adventure, and look forward to welcoming many friends to our fair city again next year. Our newly-expanded action team is already meeting monthly at World Domination HQ to ensure we rock this out.

If you’d like to be part of an epic adventure and you want to meet like-minded people while learning in a fun environment, you should come to WDS. (And if it isn’t for you, no problem.)

Those who are interested can visit WorldDominationSummit.com this Thursday, September 8th… and don’t be late. We’ll release tickets first to year-one attendees and the waiting list, and if any are left over for Wave 1, they’ll go out to the public around 11am PST.

In short, all that’s missing is you. Will you save the date?

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