The Trade Shows

The Tech Target folks continue to have it figured out in terms of what makes a good storage trade show - real users, with real problems, sitting together listening to real speakers (mostly).  The allure to the community is that there are no sales pitches.  The content is good, but not so overwhelming in terms of quantity that you can't figure out where to go or what to see.

Personally, I love SNW because all my clients are there, but if I were trying to learn something, it would be a bit overwhelming.  Even if you could eliminate the thinly veiled vendor pitches, the sheer volume of concurrent sessions is tough to navigate.  That leads to other problems, such as poor speakers, which kill a topic no matter how relevant it is.

One guy I'd like to see at Decisions who doesn't speak there for some reason is Jon Toigo.  Jon and I seem to disagree as much as agree on things, but he is an excellent speaker when he's not in a overtly disparaging mood to the vendor class he is discussing.  Regardless, he is always facilitating controversy, which agree or not, makes you think - and that's really the value that these things should bring.

Unfortunately I'm going to miss this seasons other show, Storage World, (I'll be at the Fall show), but the one I went too last year looked fairly well attended, with what looked like actual end-users.  How could I tell?  I didn't know everyone there.  It will be interesting to see if they can keep up - the vendors are frugal, and I'm not sure there is enough differentiation (perhaps they are trying to be a combo of SNW and Decisions?) to attract a different crowd - which is what the vendors really want.

I'm going to suggest to all of them that opposed to asking for folks to submit speaking proposals, that they ask you, real people, what topics you would like covered - and then find the folks to fill those tracks.  I think we spend too much time at these events talking about the latest and greatest the vendors have to offer, or what they think is cool, and not enough on what the user needs to solve problems today.  I love the forward looking stuff, but some grounded realistic content is nice as well.