Life After VON

I just read Jon Arnold's piece about "Life After VON." It's worth a read.

Candidly, at this point VON is history in many people's minds, but not mine. I feel for the business people who weren't paid the money they were owed and sadly the wrong people will get blamed.

I heard a story from someone who was owed money from Jangl. The VC's at least negotiated the bill so the company covered their costs and both sides walked away feeling good about it. The same can't be said about the handful of people who have told me their saga. We're talking people who were part of the VON community for a long time, and who Jeff, Carl, Scott and Jason interacted with on a regular basis.

Because of the way things went down, they will likely never see a dime.

So what's next for the VON community? We'll all find out at the next IT Expo. If I'm Rich Tehrani I'd be offering VON exhibitors and alumni all kinds of deals to come over. Heck, I'd even invite Jeff Pulver to speak about the changing face of telecom and how its colliding with social networks.

Bottom line is your can't kill a community. It can only take it's own life.