seanbonner: On Conferences and Sales Pitches

October 09, 2004

On Conferences and Sales Pitches

On the way to the Sxip Party at Web 2.0 Chris from Topix.net asked what I thought of the conference so far since I'd been such a skeptic about BlogOn (where I met him originally) and had then written about the idea of Lobby Cons. I said something like "so far so good, except for the sales pitches" and he replied "well yes, but that's the be expected, this is a conference."

That really got me thinking.

Maybe it is to be expected, but should it be? I know the reason I go to these things is to get inspired by other peoples ideas who I'm not regularly surrounded by. That seems pretty valuable right? And I think paying for that makes sense. And when there's a panel discussion with several of these people and you get all these opinions and takes on something that you might not have considered previously, that is really great. Of course there's the Lobby and meeting with people you wouldn't get a chance to otherwise (this time we had some great meetings at Tribe and Technorati, more on those soon) but that is what Lobby Con is all about. What's left is the sales pitches.

Now when a company sponsors one of these events they get a booth or something like that, and I always walk around and see if anyone is there that I don't know about or if anyone is showing off something new. Sponsors are important, they pay the bills so it makes sense that they have a presence, but when they are part of the schedule things get muddy. Things to keep in mind - this is 2004, it's almost 2005. There's bloggers everywhere. The web is everywhere. So consider the fact that anything that is talked about is online in minutes for everyone to see. Hearing about a panel discussion is not the same as being there and being a part of it, but why would anyone want to pay to hear a sales pitch they can read about online minutes later? What is the benefit? I guess I'm just missing something.

Back to the original question - The unique content is great. Hearing what people I respect and look up to think about what's going on and where it's going to be leading us tomorrow is amazing. Hearing from some dude at some company about how he thinks the product they are making is "next generation" or how it's going to change everything... not so much. That seems more like something people should be paid to listen to, not be paying for.

Posted by sean on October 9, 2004 10:12 AM | View blog reactions
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Comments

Well, it's time for TrueCon, then - "where you'll get the facts, not the pitch".

Posted by: Jonas M Luster on October 9, 2004 10:08 PM

I'm in sales for a tech company as my day job. I think the other side of your very valid point is that the people who design these things that they talk about at conferences really do believe in the power of their products to revolutionize things. We've got a web-based workflow distribution system for homebuilders, which is an industry still in the stone age as far as tech is concerned. We know our system will change things, we've seen it happen on a small scale, and the problem, as we see it, is that industry people just aren't thinking big enough yet. So when we go to trade shows, we often want to present in breakout sessions because we know that's the only way to get our target to start thinking about why a fully integrated system is really a better solution to their problem than another accounting system.

There's a lot of evangelizing that goes on when trying to promote the next big thing in tech, because you have to get people to see why it's needed before you can explain how your product solves the problem. When you've spent all this time working on a product that solves a particular problem, naturally your view of that problem is going to be dependent on the solution you've developed for it.

I guess my (very long-winded) point is that it's often hard to separate the education from the sales pitch in the mind of the presenter.

Posted by: Tiff on October 10, 2004 05:38 AM

Of course, and I think that's what I'm trying to say. I don't fault the speakers for thinking their product is the best thing, they work at the company so that's what they should think, I fault them for thinking people want to pay to hear them say that. And it's not even so much when someone is on a panel and something comes up, it's when someone is scheduled to speak and their entire talk is about their brand new thing, like a product launch, and then that info is everywhere on the web in minutes. What is the benefit of someone paying sometimes thousands of dollars to hear that in person rather than just reading the press release a few minutes later? Maybe people from companies shouldn't be talking about their products, maybe only "experts" should be talking about their "area of expertise"? Maybe booking people from companies to talk about something they are involved with on a corporate level is a conflict of interests? I don't know the answer, I'm just bringing up the question.

I just think there's huge benefits to these conferences due to the people that care collected in the same room, and when it turns into a commercial it drags the whole thing down.

Posted by: Sean Bonner on October 10, 2004 12:33 PM

Sean:

Nice to know our conversation spurred some further thought! It was good to see you again.

I was struck by the fact that most of the commercial speech was from CEO's launching companies -- Kim Polese with SpikeSource, Bill Gross with Snap, Joe Krause with Jot, etc -- even Benioff from Salesforce.com was less salesy, and more philosophical and Jeff Bezos also revealed some cool stuff from Alexa, instead of just saying "buy stuff from us".

So -- I guess I'm wondering, given that this was all new introductions of stuff -- is your issue the style of presentaion with lots of active voice pronouncements, or the fact that the CEO is up there pitching at all?

Just curious -- it's always a bit of a struggle to balance things, and would love to know a little more about what, specifically, annoyed you here...

Posted by: chris tolles on October 10, 2004 04:06 PM

Chris- It's really hard to say. I don't know if "annoying" is the right word, and I can't even put my figure on exactly what the situation is but I think it boils down to this:

Announcements of new products, be they made by marketing people or by CEOs, seem (to me at least) something that should be done from a sponsor booth, not from a scheduled time slot in front of the crowd. Or even from one schedulded time slot, not all day long.

I think what I'm trying to say is that these announcements are online in seconds, via people blogging, and the companies own websites as press releases, etc. And with people posting (podcasting) MP3's of the presentations it's pretty much the same as being there. So I'm asking what is the benefit of learning this 1 minute before everyone else? Because people sitting in the lobby got the same info I did only a few moments later without the big ticket pricetag.

But I'm not knocking the conventions, I think many of the panels and the collection of great minds in one place is invaluable. And the panels where these people are together sharing ideas and sparking discussions are amazing. Even reading the transcripts later it's hard to replicate the energy that goes along with those, or the ability to join in with questions. I guess I just wish the schedules had more of that, and less of the announcements.

Posted by: Sean Bonner on October 10, 2004 04:24 PM