I understand the value of networking to the people. And with sales and marketing positions these shows add value. However unless you are in marketing I fail to see any value gained by the business in having other workers attend the trade shows.
With the internet most technologies are demonstr...
I got 1 decent answer 1 ok answer and 4 me too's. Granted I did not think of the scope that sometimes companies are actively involved so one of the answers involved that but it was a me too answer also even before scope refinment
@Chad - this is very relevant question and I would also say (how much ever my judgement could be right) that question is perfectly framed not to be subjective or open ended.
Yet, i agree that quite a few people have just repeated the above answer!
I am referring to this question:
Networking for breadth, not depth
The way faq mentions -
avoid asking subjective questions where …
...
* your answer is provided along with the question ...
This question is basically in the form:
*I think networking is about breadth - tell me what...
@Chad I thought it was a fine question personally (though it did take me a few seconds of reading it to figure out that you were talking about "buying" trade shows rather than "selling" trade shows, even after the edit)
@YannisRizos now now, you've been around long enough to know that the way to stay at a rep number is by mass downvoting :-)
When I passed 32768 rep on SF I was REALLY tempted to go downvote a bunch of stuff to get the number, but I was already 200 rep over when I noticed :-/
@voretaq7 Most trade shows I have been to arent really buying either. They are expos.
That may be a function of being IT though. I know the Caterpillar Heavy Equipment Expo was definatly about buy and sell :p
Everyone I have been to has been go get a bunch of swag... drink to the M$ indoctrinationesqe koolaid... get drunk at the hotel bar... pass out... repeat for 3 days :p
The only real variation in that seems to be the bar we get drunk at :p
@BenBrocka now that's less fun that smacking people upside the head!
@Chad a lot of times at my last company we'd have execs come back from trade shows wide-eyed and salivating over promises that were made, and having scheduled us for an on-site dog-and-pony show. In all but one of those cases it was a total time sink that could have been avoided if someone from IT was there to ask "Well what about the floor cat in the datacenter?" and stumped the vendor at the show rather than in our conference room :-)
you're right though - tech conferences seem to be more "Lookit da shiny - schedule a demo later!" -- I think the buying at equipment shows and the like is b/c people already knew what they wanted, they're just going to the show for a trade show discount :)
@Vortaq7 for the cost of sending 3 or 4 people to a week long confrence you can send 1 to training for a week and get 3 man weeks of production and a actual training that brings skills in to the office. versus 4 weeks of lost work. So thats why i wonder if is anything more
IF there is no value to the business I can not see paying to send people to them.
So that spurred my question is there some value I am missing?
@Chad aside from what's already been pointed out, not really - Personally I hate trade shows and I don't know why people want to go to them (besides the booze and women)
Long story short:
I'm a software engineer at a large IT company and I've been assigned to work on an ERM project since my first day in the firm. This product is a 'shelf product' - it was developed back in the 90s, and since then, only few features were added to it, but we kept selling it - curr...
I understand the value of networking to the people. And with sales and marketing positions these shows add value. However unless you are in marketing I fail to see any value gained by the business in having other workers attend the trade shows.
With the internet most technologies are demonstr...
I am referring to this question:
Networking for breadth, not depth
The way faq mentions -
avoid asking subjective questions where …
...
* your answer is provided along with the question ...
This question is basically in the form:
*I think networking is about breadth - tell me what...
The Water Cooler
The Water Cooler