By Tim McElligott

There are movies men won’t admit to stopping on while channel surfing. The smarmy 1987 film “Dirty Dancing” is one of them. However, when it’s a man’s daughter’s favorite movie, he sometimes has no choice and can be forgiven. Besides, enough guys know the line, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” that I am confident I am not the only man who has seen this movie through more than once.

And so it is that I know there actually is a poignant scene in that movie — the only one that really rings true. It is near the end when summer is fading, another season among many at the Kellerman’s camp in New York’s Catskill Mountains is coming to an end. And as the final show tune on Mr. Kellerman’s stage is forcing its way to a painful conclusion, Kellerman, played by veteran character actor Jack Weston – who I most remember from his dramatic turn in 1964’s The Incredible Mr. Limpet and the sneaky, sweaty little cheater in 65’s The Cincinnati Kid – is standing back stage watching.

In his face you can see the anguish of a man who just realized that this way of life, too, was coming to a close. It was sad ... for a moment, almost pathetic. It appeared that no matter how hard Kellerman tried to stir up enthusiasm for the family campground experience, the audience had already moved on. They were apparently looking for something new.

I know how poor old Mr. Kellerman felt. In one of my first adult jobs, I worked through the last glory days of the independent grocer. I was also among the last generation of in-store butchers to break down their own beef and watched while the art was given away to non-union, mostly non-American, boxed-beef corporations. Now, most in-store butchers are just glorified meat slicers.

I nursed a lonely 1AESS telephone switch until its card reader clunked for the last time and settled on the shiny floor next to the softly humming 5E.

I stood by the diamond and watched flat-bellied hot shots abandon the Chicago tradition of 16-inch softball. Most recently I got my shot at being a real-live print journalist just as the industry blew its last mighty gasp into the high-flying face of the technology and Internet booms of the ‘90s and kept blowing until it fizzled after the turn of the millennium.

So I know how Mr. Kellerman felt standing off stage watching the world change around him. And I thought about him last week as B/OSS Live! offered up the best conference content it has ever produced – or most any other conference has produced lately – and, regardless, saw the winds of change blowing once more.

In the movie, Kellerman’s anguish over the end of an era lasted all of two minutes as Patrick Swayze’s character and Baby lit up the stage with something different — and a new era had begun. And he embraced it.

In the real world, as with the grocer and the butcher, and the 1AESS and the print magazine, new eras also follow immediately. Most would say better eras. Well, a new era is coming to the B/OSS Live! event that would make Max Kellerman proud.

It is time for a new era of conference to begin — and we plan to lead it. After all, nobody puts B/OSS in a corner.

The VIRGO team, led by CEO John Seifert and Communications Network Group Publisher Larry Lannon, are implementing some innovative changes to conference format, frequency and focus. So be on the lookout and get your Dirty Dancin’ shoes on.

E-mail me at tmcelligott@vpico.com.