Von-Thoughts, Reflections and More

Jon Arnold sent me a note wondering why I hadn't posted much about VON. Well for starters it was because I was very busy there inside and around the event.

On site I did what meetings I needed to. I wandered into booths that interested me and had the briefings with companies that seem to know how to reach out the right way. Some of the meetings were exciting, telling me that we've yet to hit the mature part of the cycle. Others, reminded me of my old days in sports where the opposition was so weak they could have mailed us the two points for the win column. In the case of those boring and lifeless presentations, next time they can email me the Powerpoint.

So you see, maybe because I set up a lot of meetings before VON Blur began I forgot to leave time to write about it. Or just maybe its because 3 of the Top Ten Innovators were clients of my agency and/or I sit on their Advisory Boards. Or that five of the 65 are. Or that between the informal Sunday Night Dinner at the Grill on The Alley with over a dozen gustes, the Jeff Pulver Social Networking Breakfast, the Dean Elwood hosted VoIP User Dinner and my own hosted Wine Dinner and all the people who made it to those events.

You see, those very personal events, around the event, only happen when there's an event like VON, eComm, DEMO, CTIA, CES or something of an industry assembling nature. The hotel lobbies were regularly my meeting room. So was the VON lobby, the speakers lounge and the press room. All those locations had a steady stream of people coming in and going out. And ironically, these are the same people who rarely walk the floor other than to grab a brochure, sneak in a quick demo or walk over to the VON Theatre, an idea I really like.

Without events like VON, TMC's IT Expo, Channels, VoiceCon and Comptel, our industry won't easily get together. And that's what annual events are for.