THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

I was at that same ITPro Townhall the other day that blended IT Technical folks with Press, and quite frankly the experience was exactly like the TechEd Bloggers breakfast event last year where half the room was IT techy bloggers like Laura Hunter, and the other half was Mary Jo Foley types.  It just felt a little weird.  The gentlemen from Forrester, John Rymer at the end called us "the IT pro community" but we really weren't.  There was the media community that served the IT pros, and then there were representatives from the IT Pro community, leaders of user groups, folks that made Microsoft listen.  It wasn't an event of one community, but representatives from many. I guess maybe that was the goal to get representative samples from folks who "touched" IT pros and what they do, but to me, it didn't feel like a real community.  And certainly the event left me wanting more communication.

I was reminded of this today when reading a post on Scoble's blog...and reading a post from Alfred Thompson about the impact of the IT press and how there's a greater value to the IT world of hearing the information from the experts and not from the folks that filter the view.  I also had to laugh about how Scoble in his infinite wisdom blogs.. "It’s my little protest against expensive conference passes to hear about something new Microsoft wants me to talk about anyway." 

Hang on.... isn't this the same Scoble who blogged that Molly was right .... that speaking shouldn't be done for free? So let me get this straight... you are complaining that the price of conference passes as a protest ...and you yourself said that speakers should be paid for what they do in past blog posts?  If speakers are to be paid, that price tag has to be determined in the conference fee right?  So if these passes are "expensive", are the speakers then getting what you yourself said they should get?

As a person who normally volunteers to organize conferences for the AICPA or CalCPA society, quite honestly it's rare that I get paid for presenting at a conference.  Some provide hotel, some provide airfare, but it's rare that I get hotel, airfare AND a payment for my presentation.  So Robert, when you, who haven't organized the conference, or even done anything but show up and blog about it, expects that you will get in for free... isn't that a tad much in the expectation department?  Are we bloggers getting a bit full of ourselves (granted I'm not even near the Scoble blog league mind you) ... when we expect to be treated and comp'd on things just because we blog?  It felt actually a bit embarrassing at the ITPro Townhall to get such treatment.  Heck, all I do it post up here, how about a bit more TLC for the folks dealing with the svchost.exe issue and stuff like that? 

There's a conference coming up in fact that not a single speaker is being paid, and we're all volunteering to make this event an "un" conference.  The goal of this "unconference" is not to talk AT you, but to share WITH you.  Thus the conference pass or ticket is affordable to community members.  As the goal here is to not make it a press talking head event, but rather to make it a conversation that continues on afterwards.  What did I want to see the most out of that ITpro Townhall?  To keep the conversation going afterward.  And that's exactly the goal of SBSmigration.com's New Orleans Conference and Cruise.  To throw the power point out the window and make it a conversation that continues on.  From contacts with vendors, to parties and food, to a riverboat cruise with live music, dinner, the goal here is to build on the community and send it home afterwards to build on it.

Robert?  Mix's price tag of $1,195 may be out of your league but Jeff's Community conference price tag of $295... you don't even need a press pass to afford that one.