[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]

The Union League Club of Chicago Building

Yesterday, I attended the 2014 Midwest Business & Marketing Conference at the historic Union League Club of Chicago. While business conferences are far afield from my usual interests, the main draw for me was seeing Lexington Green speak about the book he co-authored with James C. Bennett, America 3.0

Michael J. Lotus (“Lex”)                         His book

Lex’s speech, which gave some highlights from the book and tried to explain why some our economic doldrums are really birth pangs of a new world (while others are rentier gasps of the old) was excellent and well received, with a long Q& A session and folks in the audience buying copies of America 3.0.  This was far from the only intriguing talk. Carl Stumpf, speaking about “The Disruptive Cloud”  predicted virtually revolutionary changes in IT practices for society, business and government  that will come from market forces driving adoption of cloud computing; venture capitalist and angel investor Jeff Carter outlined what Chicago needs to do to become a “self-sustaining ecosystem” of internet/tech business innovation; while Bethany McLean, Vanity Fair editor and author of The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron and All the Devils are Here, delivered a rapid-fire discussion of journalism, the financial collapse of 2008, Enron and other subjects that was most informative.

The best speaker, in the oratorical sense, was former gubernatorial candidate for governor, social conservative and WLS Radio personality Dan Proft whose lecture was “Gloom and Hope for the Illinois Economy” . Witty and sarcastic, Proft ably skewered Illinois politicians and politics, was something of a jackass on the subject of public education, deftly handled critical questions, was extremely blunt about the political shortcomings of the Illinois GOP and in general gave a “fire in the belly” presentation for political change.

Aside from the speakers, the Union League Club is a superb venue for conferences and meetings. The food was excellent and the meeting room comfortable with an attentive staff. I further enjoyed getting to meet and speak to the large representation of bloggers from Chicago Boyz including site admin Jonathan, Carl from Chicago, Lexington Green (already an amigo) and conference organizer Dan from Madison during lunch and the cocktail hour.

I predict bigger and better for 2015!