Conference Attendance is on the decline...

In a down economy, the first thing that gets cut is education...



2009 will bring with it many conferences that are no longer viable and where you will see last minute cancellations of events. The conferences that have the best chance of survival are the ones that shifted more of the expense to software vendors who pay lots of money for booth space and where attendees don't have to pay fees.

Some of the conferences may observe the shift in economics and make their events for free but will make one fatal mistake. As software vendors will be expected to pick up more of the expense, they too will demand even more speaking slots which will be filled with thinly veiled chock-a-block eye candy PowerPoint that lacks substance causing the attendees to not attend for other reasons and hence the downward spiral begins.

The funny thing is that as conferences seek more money, the software vendors will want to spend less and the economics simply won't work. The funny thing is that software vendors (at least the masses) haven't realized that there is a viable alternative and ways to meet end customers without shelling out so much money. It is best known as local user groups.

Consider the economic model if a vendor decided to sponsor the upcoming Hartford CT Chapter of OWASP where they would gain access to hundreds of IT professionals for the cost of pizza. Think about the economics of investing $2 a head vs the usual $50 or more for sponsoring a conference such as Gartner. Sure, there are some additional things that Gartner provides such as mailing lists that user groups don't, but you will typically find that there is a correlation between the two.

For IT management, you need to do what is right for your company economically while also continuing to increase the competencies of your IT staff and user groups are the absolute cheapest way to accomplish this goal. For vendors, you can sponsor an OWASP meeting for a total cost of $200. First come, first serve for our next meeting on February 10th...

Ways to ignore software vendors who telemarket...

As vendors attempt to make their numbers for the end of the year, the volume of cold calling using telemarketing will increase...



Here are some best practices to annoy telemarketers of software vendors:

When they're talking, (as soon as you know it's a telemarketer), start saying "No" to everything they ask. Even say "No" while they're talking. For best results, keep the same tempo but change your tone and loudness between "No"s

Pretend to be interested; waste lots of their time

Read the love poetry, The mission statement of some project within your enterprise, etc

Ask lots of annoying, boneheaded questions. If you can't think of any, read Robert McIlree or James Robertson blog to them.

Ask them how much they contribute to open source as most sales folks tend to not have a clue about other than what they sell.

They usually are prepared with quotes from Gartner, so ask them about what a small firm such as Redmonk would say about them?

Say, "Sorry, I can't talk now. I have to find a clever way of using cliche phrases such as best practices in my powerpoint presentation to executives, but I would like to borrow some of yours too

Burst into a maniacal giggling fit as soon as they mention the company's name.

When they tell you the company's name, say, "You're still in business? I guess the bomb still has another 30 seconds or so.

Try to sound like an operator: "Hello, you have reached the Disco Divas Hotline. ... Presione la estrella para escuchar estos mensajes en español. Serrez livre pour écouter ces messages en français. ... Press 1 to listen to disco music. Press 2 to order our Disco Divas CD. Press 3 to repeat these messages.

Or you might try another short and sweet approach by simply saying, "I'm not interested, to save my time and yours, I will just say 'goodbye'

I will buy your product if you can legally prove to me that you are not in an outside country taking jobs away from [your country here].

Ring the alarm, how to detect enterprisey architects...

Have you ever heard any of these phrases? If so, you are surrounded by enterprisey architects...

We outsource testing but didn't provide them with any quality documentation. I wonder why quality is in the toilet?

We don't have time to write automated tests. We have plenty of time to run all hands on deck tests and integration exercise at the 11th hour though.

What do you mean? There's 'another' way to do this?

Let's skip evaluating the software and go with the Gartner recommendation

We don't want too many superstars here. You'll all kill each other

Let's have a meeting to discuss our meeting schedule

The problem is, we can see by this that you've obviously started coding without submitting a design document first...