Last week I lucked out and got a ticket to go to the 2008 Georgia Technology Summit thanks to Lance Weatherby and the folks down at ATDC (I’ve been begging, to no avail, for one for a while).
I was going to write a long post about what I thought was right and wrong with the event. Fortunately both Lance Weatherby and Scott Burkett did that job for me. I will chime in on the whole video thing (Lance railed on this last year as well). I think it’s really silly to have a videotaped intro done by someone who is in the audience. Not only that, this same person will come up to the podium after the video shows. Generally, people use video for including individuals that can’t make it to the event. And if you are going to do something silly like this, the presenter should be well rehearsed and have a smooth presentation. One can forgive a presenter stumbling when they present in person but you can re-record a video as many times as is necessary to get a smooth presentation.
Speaking of in-person presentations, John Imlay was an outstanding speaker. Of course, if I were European I’m not sure I would have appreciated a number of his jokes but for us Americans the talk was great. This talk alone made the trip to the Summit worthwhile. As an added bonus I can now say that John Imlay is in fact a real person since so few people have ever seen the man. He does exist and he is absolutely hilarious.
Personally this was a great event for me because it shows what should and shouldn’t be done at a pitch event. I’m taking these lessons and will incorporate them in the event I’m working on. More details soon!
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