Comments on frivolous motion: 10 Things That Suck About FOOA: Day One

Day two was better for the most part - and the div...

2007-06-10T22:41:54.163-04:00

Day two was better for the most part - and the diversity of the speakers was welcome. It was more forward looking, more varied approaches to advertising, and there was some focus on the publisher side of things, too.

Nothing as great as the panel on the first day - but that would've been hard to beat.

I thought the whole day was pretty good. I didn't...

2007-06-10T22:37:04.840-04:00

I thought the whole day was pretty good. I didn't get to the second day, was it better? The last panel kicked ass and I thought it was the best. I really hope they do more of that future looking stuff and get those guys back next year. They were really good and even disagreed with each other which was even better.

Great post - you even covered some of the more sub...

2007-06-08T14:04:40.248-04:00

Great post - you even covered some of the more subliminal ones I hadn't realised! Totally agree re. the categorisation thing, and the execs thing (although they must have money - did you have a spare $1000 when you were just out of school?). I've linked your more rounded post to mine. And thanks for your comment. :-)

i am so jealous i am not there. =( thanks to twitt...

2007-06-08T11:45:02.278-04:00

i am so jealous i am not there. =( thanks to twitter though, i have a seat right next to you. sort of.

(how's that for an ad?!)

Justin - thanks. Great list. Agreed. And don't wor...

2007-06-08T10:34:22.462-04:00

Justin - thanks. Great list. Agreed. And don't worry about my honesty and integrity. I intend to give Lisa and the conference all my respect and fairness, but what's bad is bad and saying so will only help their conferences in the future.

RE: the music, which I twittered about - yeah, that needed a /sarcasm tag.

Kevin,Thought you were dead on with your assessmen...

2007-06-08T10:14:42.616-04:00

Kevin,
Thought you were dead on with your assessment of FOOA. I would add the following:
1. All sizzle very little steak. The venue was dynamic, the speakers were not. Really outside of Jim Coudall, who offered nothing relevent to my business, there were no speakers that grabbed you, that captivated your interest. I would sum up the day as "here's my pitch, blah blah blah."
2. I can wipe my own hands and other parts, thank you. Nothing screams pretentious like a bathroom attendent. I don't know if that was the doing of Carson Systems or it came built in with Gotham Hall, but please people we seriously don't need a bathroom attendent.
3. What do you do? "Well I blah blah blah blah, and we are working on a startup web 2.0 blog blah blah blah." After a few of these such conversations, I ran out of interest of even interacting with everyone.
4. Are we at a wedding? I would agree, that lunch wasn't lunch It felt more like a wedding, with a series of tray carriers carting through offering you a snack here and a snack there.
5. Wifi Why? Yes the wifi was horrendous. Embarassing for a tech based conference, in New York of all places to not have a reliable wifi connection. I don't know what or who Urban Hotspots is, but I certainly wouldn't be proud of promoting my product that doesn't work. And please Ryan, don't tell a room full of geeks on day number two to try and only use the wifi to check email, you can't be serious.
6. More Technical Difficulties: If it wasn't the sound not working, or someones PPT presentation not functioning, it was something else. Yet the horrible techno music summoning everyone back to their seats alerting us that the conference was starting back up, worked flawlessly, unfortunately. And Kev, please don't try and find a silver lining on the conference by praising that horrible music.
7. Q&A - Uggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I thought that perhaps a refreshing break from many of the robotic presentations was their openness to integrating Q&A into their presentations. Bad idea. Open mic only opened the door to either geeks who were afraid to speak but seemed to get up on a dare or in their effort to "practice public speaking," please everyone, just join toastmasters and practice there. Or on the other hand, geek blow hards that just loved to hear themselves talk, and were really just standing up to stretch their legs and their vocal cords as well. Lastly their was the asian guy in the front row who insisted on getting up and asking questions to nearly every presenter, the best of which when he rambled on for a good couple of minutes before the panel at the end of the day asked him "what is your question."
8. Enough ass kissing. Every other presenter had to kiss the ass of the previous presenter, and kiss the ass of Carson Systems, "thank you for inviting me here, and for putting on this great conference, and blah blah blah." Although in contrast it was funny when various presenters contradicted other presenters. That alone was entertaining.
9. Its Not Only About You. There were all of I think five booths in the mezzanine area. And without fail everytime I approached a booth to find out about their product, someone approached at the same time, and was completely oblivious that maybe there was someone else in the room. This is how it would go down. Me "Hi, tell me about your product." Booth Guy "Ohh sure, well we offer a way for you to upload video to your site, and we host all of your video on our servers." Geek "Ok, so for example I run a family blog. Its for new fathers and new familiies, and its just getting going but what I'm thinking is that new fathers and families could maybe upload video. . ."
10. We Don't Have an Unlimited Budget! So many of the presenters would talk about their product that I assure you 99% of the people in the room couldn't afford. There is a reason why Google Adwords is the big dog in the kennel. Its affordable, it works, and everyone can use it. The future of online advertising can't be just for big companies, most of which aren't even reprented at this conference.
Anyhow, that's my rant. Kev, I don't know you from Adam, but I would say your observations from Day One were really right on, and just because Lisa wrote you a couple line comment, shouldn't be reason for you to be anything other than honest in your summary of day two.

Kevin - thanks for starting this conversation, I w...

2007-06-08T09:15:20.101-04:00

Kevin - thanks for starting this conversation, I will post my response to this on my blog.

Kevin, Yep I am the brother of Gary Vaynerchuk of ...

2007-06-08T09:12:22.657-04:00

Kevin, Yep I am the brother of Gary Vaynerchuk of the Wine World who is so devastated he couldn't attend this wonderful (outside of the few problems) event

AJ - Couldn't agree more about the jeans, actually...

2007-06-08T08:47:19.125-04:00

AJ - Couldn't agree more about the jeans, actually. I'm just glad to get a couple days off work to be a little more semi-semi-casual.

You're doing a great job blogging the event yourself. Related to Gary Vaynerchuk of the wine world?

Kevin, first off nice post - couldn't agree more a...

2007-06-08T08:41:47.944-04:00

Kevin, first off nice post - couldn't agree more about the Wi-Fi.

"# Teenage Executives - Sorry, but if you are still in high school, you do not deserve to be wearing an “Executive” nametag."

- Phew! Just made it, I am 20. Then again I didn't wear the executive tag either.

"Second, why does everyone with a Creative name tag have to wear jeans and an edgy t-shirt and carry a shabby-chic mail bag slash laptop case?"

- I wore the creative tag, but chose it the same way you did considering all the tags kinda stunk. I am wearing an "edgy t-shirt" right now as I sit in on Day 2, but it's merely an advertisement plug. Finally, jeans are comfortable!

Look forward to tomorrow's post on FOOA, and maybe I'll run into you at some point today.

Zuluqueen: Business blogging guru Seth Godin poste...

2007-06-08T08:22:14.691-04:00

Zuluqueen: Business blogging guru Seth Godin posted on his blog a few months ago that the first 5 folks to send an email to a specific address would get a free pass. Somehow I was quick enough, even though I got the story in my feed reader! Lucky!

Paul, thanks for your comment, and I agree about the frustration with the wi-fi. Even after lunch it wasn't working perfectly, but so far this morning it seems to be working great.

Lisa, thanks for taking the time to respond to my thoughts - I'm really surprised you found my booklet (or someone else's booklet with notes haha!) I will try to get back to the desk today to chat with you. And by the way, take my rant with a grain of salt - I think the conference has been great, definitely worth my time (and would be worth the money had I paid), and I look forward to day two. I promise I'll have some really good things to say about it after it's all over and I can use the keynotes as a jumping-off point into further musings on ads in the future.

I think we found your booklet - you can come and p...

2007-06-08T07:25:39.422-04:00

I think we found your booklet - you can come and pick it up from the Speakers, sponsors and press registration desk, where we'll be happy to comment on a lot of your points.
Thanks
Lisa (Carson Systems)

ps. the wifi worked fine in the afternoon.

I'll agree with you on a few of your points:* The ...

2007-06-08T01:25:14.960-04:00

I'll agree with you on a few of your points:

* The wifi was really, REALLY frustrating

* I too overheard quite a few pretentious conversations from very arrogant people

* Some of the PPT was really bad, but I think the disparity was more glaring because of the gentleman from Yahoo, whose presentation was actually really good

Hey kev,How did you manage to get in free to this ...

2007-06-08T00:59:18.773-04:00

Hey kev,

How did you manage to get in free to this event?

The photo expo that's coming up in October should be more exciting.