Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
Enterprise 2.0: With $OUR_PRODUCT, you can $VERB $NOUN
So, Enterprise 2.0 is turning out to be one of those sorts of conferences where many of the presentations are just product pitches, poorly disguised as “keynotes”. I always thing of keynotes as those presentations that are given by really amazing thinkers, people who can open your eyes to something new, some new way of thinking about the world. What I don’t think of is vendors yapping on about their tools, obscuring everything with impenetrable jargon, and attempting to lead the audience by the nose towards their salesmen.
Yuch.
After two pretty decent presentations, the rest of the morning has been people pimping shit, and I’m not going to blog someone’s marketing pitch. I don’t think you benefit from reading about an unobjective, bollocks-laden presentation; and I certainly don’t benefit from writing it. Specially not on four hours’ sleep.
Now, I know that vendors sponsor conferences and expect to thus have bought a platform to bludgeon us all to death with their product pitch. But many geek conferences manage to get sponsors, and a great speaker-line up, without including a bunch of sales managers pimping their wares. If someone from MS comes along and gives a really interesting presentation about an areas of their expertise, in my mind that actually does them more good than standing up on stage whittering on about Sharepoint.
I really wish some of these less geeky conferences would learn that lesson. This morning has mainly been people talking from the podium - no questions from the audience, no discussion, just yapping. This is 180 degrees from open space, or FooCamp-style gatherings, or unconferences, and it’s made me realise just how spoilt I’ve been lately by conferences that know how to make it an enjoyable experience, rather than a hard slog.
Hopefully the afternoon will be better.
Loading ...
June 19th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
I have to say, I predicted it would go this way: http://socialwrite.com/2007/05/11/pathetic-conferences/
June 19th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Suw,
Thanks for this, since I missed several presentations this am. You seem to have conquered your jet lag. Good show and great point about blogs having many uses.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Suw,
Thanks for this, since I missed several presentations this am. You seem to have conquered your jet lag. Good show and great point about blogs having many uses.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Yes, as someone who was somewhat involved in putting the conference together (i was the chair last year and helped a bit this year) I have to agree that the middle handful of presentations were, um, well, yeah, what you said. I thought David Weinberger and Andrew McAfee both did great jobs, though. We will just have to get rid of this stuff for next year and have more McAfees and Weinbergers, and more discussion. Looking forward to hearing what you think of the afternoon.
June 20th, 2007 at 12:20 am
You tell ‘em, Suw!
I truly appreciate reading conference reports from somebody whose quality “readout” sometimes comes down out of “What a fine talk!” territory. Those who cannot blog a negative review should realize that it makes their good reviews much less believable.
Hope you recover from jet-lag and lack of sleep!