On your first point, I have seen other vendors interpret ‘thought provoking’ to mean ‘sales pitch’ when I’ve presented at events – but I think you are right, the audience is intelligent enough to figure that stuff out and everyone should be given the opportunity to be ‘thought provoking’ and maybe event organisers should take a little more interest in the content beforehand.

Your second point, excellent and I’d love to steal (with full accreditation) for my little book of analogies

Cheers!

Ian

Great post. I totally understand where you are coming from. I also hate it when I see conferences that do not want “Vendors” to present. As long as you establish the rules ahead of time, anyone should be allowed.

I also wanted to share this story with you:

I worked at eBay for 6 years and managed the “Voice of the Community” program where we invited a cross-section of the community into the office and meet with them to discuss their needs, wants….I bet that you could imagine the topics.

A CROSS-SECTION

It was not just high volume sellers & buyers that were registered on the site for years and years. It was everyone. We realized the importance of hearing from all sides of the coin in order to develop features and functionality that benefited everyone. As soon as you ignore 1 piece of the puzzle, that is when you start to lose momentum. The best part of it was when we sat buyers across the table from the sellers. The sellers thought that they knew how the buyers were looking for their product, but in many cases there were incorrect. I think that in most cases they learned more from each other than they did from eBay.

Anyway, my point is that you need a holistic view of every situation in order to make the best decision and when you decide to exclude people, that is when you get into trouble.

I look forward to your posts.

Mike P | @mikepascucci