Guest blogger: Disappointments of a first timer to Lotusphere Comes to You St Louis
Tags :Lotusphere
Hi, I sent this posting over via email so it cold be pasted in. I went to the Lotusphere Comes to You in St Louis last week for my first time. I knew it was only a day review of what was explained to me a week long event. I knew it would be consolidated. I was not ready, however, for the way it was presented. The speakers showed a lot of videos and hardly anything live. One person actually showed his inbox, but everyone else had these pre-planned videos and stuff. It turned out to be like a sales meeting in a way, where they talk about the products but only show slides. I thought half of this was shipping? Could they not show it? Are the demos too hard? How can I make this work for my users then?
Also some of the speakers didn't seem to know fully the material or topic they presented. Questions went unanswered. That was a bit disconcerting for those that couldn't got to Lotusphere and needed more information. I didn't plan on speeding a day there to get more questions that I came in with (meaning others asked some good ones too). I know we only had a day to get this completed, but it seemed a bunch of product announcements from Lotusphere didn't even make it into the program in any way. I know I stepped out once for a phone call, but in 20 minutes they could not have done them all as the session I stepped out from was still going strong when I reentered.
So my last thought was the actual other attendees. From talking to people, there was like 3-4 times as many people last year. With about 20-25 there this year, what happened? I am sure it was not the change in venue as I got the email weeks before. Where the heck was everyone?
IdoNotes note: I found the same thing from LCTY in Minneapolis per this blog posting. I couldn't comment on that blog posting as it required a Wordpress account. I suspect we are seeing this at cities that partners do not do a majority or any of the presentations?
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On Monday, May 12th, 2008 by Wanted to be Anonymous
