I'm Going to The BD Event, Should You?

Up until a couple of years ago, I could go to SNW and meet with my colleagues in the storage press, vendors big, small and in stealth and the other powers that be in the storage business from 8 AM to 9 PM for all three days of the show. While it was exhausting, especially the year I had a bad cold, it gave me a view of what was going on in the market that I couldn't get anywhere else.

While end users were welcome at SNW, they were attending a very different event than those of us that were there playing inside storage industry baseball. Storage Decisions, on the other hand, is all about the end user and since there were four Storage Decisions conferences around the country each year they were mostly local end users. The Storage Decisions folks don't aim at generating product announcements and press conferences, providing us with just a sad little press room at best. That left SNW as the place for inside baseball.

Then the show producers started trying to control the whole experience. They limited access to the press room to conference sponsor/exhibitors. All of a sudden, that meant I couldn't meet with startups that couldn't afford the minimum sponsorship and stealth mode companies that didn't want to exhibit. They even intervened with the hotel to stop a PR firm from having a cocktail party for the cognoscenti in the hotel bar.

Now, to some extent, I understand why SNIA and ComputerWorld try to discourage non-sponsors from taking advantage of the money they spend promoting and producing SNW to forward their PR and business development goals while not kicking a few dollars into the kitty. After all, one reason Comdex imploded was that major vendors started taking suites around Vegas for private meetings with the press and other VIPs while not buying a booth on the show floor so the great unwashed masses of attendees, over 100,000 for a few years there, would wonder where Maxtor or IBM was. As one of the few industry press folks that actually liked Comdex I don't want SNW to fail, though I think it would be better in Vegas.

Even though I understand, this tightening of control means there are briefings and other business I used to do at SNW that I can't anymore. I hit my limit when they set up the press room with four standup cocktail tables but no chairs and no Internet access. Apparently enough other analysts, pundits and luminaries had the same experience for Greg Duplessie to organize The BDEvent (The Business Development Networking Event) in Boston next month.

His pitch was no exhibit hall, no sponsors, no end users -- just vendors with stories to tell and folks in a position to spread the word or invest money to listen. Startups get their 15 minutes of fame on stage and there will be plenty of places to sneak off for a private briefing. It sounded good enough for me.

Oh yeah. Since there are no sponsors; everyone, except the press 'cause they know we're underpaid, pays one price -- $595 -- to attend. Story tellers, analysts pitching services, consultant's looking for new vendors, startups or 800 lb gorillas like IBM or EMC all pay the same and the coffee pots don't have a sponsor.

If you have a story to tell come to Boston and I'll listen. See www.thebdevent.com to register. If you're coming, send me an email to reserve a slot on my calendar. Vendors offering extravagant meals encouraged.