Last Friday, Inside Self-Storage sponsored a seminar in San Diego titled, "Developing Boat and RV Storage: Cruising Into the New Market." This new educational project was master-minded by Mako Steel President Caesar Wright, who believes boat and RV storage to be one of a just a few development opportunities still thriving in the throes of economic downturn. He was joined in his presentation by RK Kliebenstein, president of Coast-To-Coast Storage.

While I wasn't able to make it to the Sunny City event (a little beach time would have been much appreciated), I was intimately involved in the planning of the seminar, since we had been hired on as the official "marketing arm." The content is thorough and very solid, so it didn't surprise me that we had a fantastic turnout of more than 30 development professionals (and only a few directly from the self-storage industry).

In light of the first seminar's success, it was decided yesterday that we should move forward with a second, just seven weeks from today. The next will take place in conjunction with the ISS Expo in Nashville, on Friday, Oct. 10. We'll be at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, and Caesar's event will be tied into the show agenda.

In short, if you have interest in this kind of thing, and you couldn't join us in S.D., you haven't "missed the boat" so to speak. We had a lot of prospective attendees who said the topic was very appealing, but August was not a good time for them to attend, between vacations and kids getting ready for school. Perhaps take two will be the perfect opportunity, especially if you're already attending the expo in Music City.

The website has been updated to reflect the new date and location: www.developingboatrvstorage.com. If you pop over there, you can read about the seminar content and the speakers involved. There's also a page with links to several articles regarding boat and RV storage: how to build it, where to build it, how to market it, etc. It's a resource worth investigating.

And now I really am off to the beach ... in a few days anyway. I'll be spending Labor Day weekend on the East Coast with my family, including a lovely foray into a sleepy beachside town where we used to vacation when I was a kid. I'm looking forward to the sound of the surf, the stink of the seaweed and the taste of saltwater taffy ... Here's hoping the last long weekend of the summer is as everything you hope it to be.