On my way back from Las Vegas (the official city of Never Stop Marketing), I had the good fortune to sit next to Jojoe.

His family emigrated to the US from Uganda and after he took his picture with Miss Black Nevada (first things first, you know), our talk turned to his career (he works in technical support at Verizon).

He asked me about marketing and well, since I am pretty passionate about it, I gave him the hard-core intro into my philosophy.

Afterwards, he emailed and asked if I’d be willing to meet him, to mentor him in the ways of Never Stop Marketing (his words).

I gave him homework: “Read The Cluetrain Manifesto and subscribe to my blog. Then, follow up with me in a month.”

I wanted to test his mettle.

Well, he wrote a short report on the book, has obviously been reading the blog, and had the diligence and persistence to follow-up.

Then, because Jojoe is a believer in community driven marketing, I asked him if it would be ok to open it up to other would-be mentees.

He agreed.

I’ve had some amazing and fantastic mentors in my career, so it seemed fitting to me that I “pay it forward” and was, of course, very honored that Jojoe thought I was worthy of being anyone’s mentor…

So, our first meeting will be on Sept. 30th at 10am (probably in the Silver Spring/Wheaton area). If you join the event on Facebook (something is screwy with picture upload on the event on Facebook…but anyway), we’ll message you with the location as we get closer to the event.

But, it’s not for anyone. And if it’s only Jojoe and me, that’s fine.

If you are local (I suppose we could do virtual, if people really want it) and want to join us, you can, provided you

1. read at least one of the following books
• The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual
• All Marketers Are Liars
• Here Comes Everybody
2. Come prepared to discuss it
3. Have one example of something you did to build your Global MicroBrand
4. Bonus: bring a piece of paraphernalia from the Never Stop Marketing store…

In other words, if you’re not passionate, we don’t want you.

If you are, join us and see what happens.