Craig Roth: Vendor Conferences: Preaching to the Faithful (and the Press)

April 21 2009

Burton Group's Craig Roth reflects on a meeting we had a couple of weeks ago during the Chicago edition of Lotusphere Comes to You:

It seems to me that one of the ironies of the success of Lotusphere is that Lotusphere is not the best place to make game-changing announcements about Lotus.  The people that go to Lotusphere - a sea of yellow shirts (and sometimes hair) that IBM says broke attendance records this year - are the Lotus faithful. They already like Notes/Domino and have dedicated years of their life to it.  If they weren't interested in Lotus, they wouldn't be there.
This is definitely a big challenge.  There are four distinct audiences for the Lotusphere opening general session -- installed clients, prospects, partners, and press/analysts.  In recent years bloggers have overlapped a few of those.  Running the Lotusphere general session and hitting all of these targets with something to take home takes a ton of choreography -- for 2009, I think we did an especially good job of this.

As Craig notes, this isn't uniquely our challenge:
This isn't an IBM issue - it is the same for any vendor that holds conferences and needs to prioritize messages for current customers against those that attract new ones.  But some other vendors have the advantage of broader conferences that allow for more cross-selling, such as OracleWorld where a database faithful can get pounded with a portal and collaboration or business process management message at 120db and possibly walk away with something new to think about.

Accordingly, IBM made a great move when they spoke at MacWorld, speaking to a huge audience of prospects that offer a real chance to steal marketshare.  Bob also recited several other non-IBM events they had spoken at.  I think this is the right path for hitting a new set of ears.
Link: Craig Roth: Vendor Conferences: Preaching to the Faithful (and the Press) >

Ed Brill | New York, NY USA Category:  Lotusphere2009  Add/View Comments [6]

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  1. 1  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/21/2009 3:43:14 PM

    Hey... I resemble that remark. :-P

  1. 2  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/21/2009 3:59:26 PM

    I almost linked to a pic in that text :-)

  1. 3  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 4/22/2009 12:34:38 PM

    { Link }

  1. 4  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 4/23/2009 12:46:32 PM

    4 days of keynotes and/or announcements was a better way, although some more advance knowledge/publicity around some of those would have helped for attendees planning.

    But I still miss Devcon, it took most of the dev stuff out of Lotusphere, leaving it to be really about products and infrastructure.

  1. 5  David Hablewitz  | 4/27/2009 2:24:48 PM

    Speaking of vendor conferences, your travel plans do not appear to include WES. Surely there will be IBM representation there, yes?

  1. 6  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/28/2009 4:28:32 AM

    Of course. Bob Picciano is part of the keynote at WES. Kevin Cavanaugh (my boss) will be there as well. Some of my team will be, too. I just couldn't go to Orlando twice in two weeks... I will be there subsequent week for SAP's sapphire conference.