I Hate Poorly-Run Events
If you work in consumer internet/tech, you will know that there is a ton of noise that can easily distract you from your work. These distractions (some of which are good and some of which are bad) come in the form of launch announcements, news, geek gossip, idle gossip, tweets, blog posts, and of course events. There are tons of events happening 24/7/365. You could conceivably attend an event, conference, panel, cocktail hour, dinner, hackathon, debate, meetup, etc. every day of the week.
There are also many poorly-run events. Oftentimes it is clear that the only value a given event brings to the table is the fact that hoards of people are congregating in one location at the same time. Everything else - the sessions, speakers, venue - is pure crapola.
In general, I only attend events if the following criteria are met:
- It’s run by people/companies that I know will run high quality events that are cleanly executed - that means no detail is overlooked. I was recently at an event where the A/C was busted so the entire venue turned into a sauna. You couldn’t even go outside to cool off, because it was 90+ degrees and sweltering outside. Big no-no.
- The event features content (sessions & speakers) that’s truly interesting to me.
- It is an event I’m personally working on (duh)
- It’s not overpriced. (e.g. < $500) If overpriced, then I can get in at a significant discount or with a comp pass.
- It’s relatively small. Out of necessity, I may attend large events (> 1000), but in general I have a strong preference for smaller, more intimate events. The event I’m attending today, CrowdConf, is a great example of this.
- It’s not overly commercial. Now this is a grey area, because most events sell sponsorships and it’s a given that you’ll get ads and free swag. Google I/O is one of the few large conferences that doesn’t sell sponsorships, and in general Google marketing does not sell sponsorships. So the concept is pretty foreign to me and it’s something I’m learning more about now that I’m at 500S. But I do feel strongly that there is a tasteful way to feature sponsors at an event. When I start seeing postcards and stickers strewn around all over the lunch tables and all over the venue, it starts to look like trash.
- It’s relatively low time commitment - no longer than 2 days.
In general, people will pay good money and time to attend your event. You should do nothing less than exceed their expectations.
