Quote:
Originally Posted by xanadu
I personally hate it when the list is a mess,fake etc, makes it very hard for meetings and get good ROI from a show. Before AVN I was attending and sponsoring most of the events around, so I know how it feels... I now usually spend a lot of time myself to clean up the lists of internext and wma, fix urls, business titles, names on the badge etc. This year again I emailed 100s of participants, to see if coming, get more data from them so their profile is complete, deleted plenty of people that registered twice....
In general i think both us the organisers and you as attendees need to work a bit harder in the future to make the events more business productive.
This year we wanted to focus on 2 things from our side.
1.The internext app is already available in the apple store a few weeks now and the only reason we havent announced it is that we are waiting the final approval from apple on the last part of the code, so the attendees can contact each other and set up meetings in a secure way(without sharing data unless they decide so). Hopefully in a few days we will have it and we will notify you all about it and how to use it. I think this will help a lot to increase the productivity of the events as we are almost all using a smartphone and nothing easier during a conference.
2. We will be fucking strict with people wearing badges all the time. As most of you that are attending regularly our events know, I am always at the door of every dinner, party etc facilitating everyone. I thought I was helping but after giving it some thought, i realised that it was completely wrong... I see more and more people at the shows walking around without a badge and this is really bad for networking guys..
I was last september in amsterdam in the traffic dinner, having a chat with the sponsors. Talking about how to network people better etc. Suddenly i look around and i realise that from the 200 people in the dinner, I couldnt see one(1) wearing a fucking badge, not even me.... This has to end now lol
|
I agree with this. But, I will share why I don't wear my badge a lot. I mostly put it into my pocket with the lanyard sticking out so security can see it. Or I turn it around, so not just anyone can read it.
I really don't enjoy every green, newbie rep from every processor or hosting company coming up to me and getting a look at my badge and trying to make up some commonality to strike up a conversation with me for no reason. I love to meet new people, but some of these guys just can't take no for an answer and I end up just walking away from them.
Most of us that have been in the space for 10+ years already have hosting and processing relationships, and have most everything we need. We mostly attend shows to keep our relationships strong with our partners, and set up meetings in advance.
I do agree with you though.
Maybe issue some fly swatters for overzealous reps who can't get out of "pitch" mode?
PS: Thanks for your and Theo's support, we appreciate it.
