Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Thursday 18 December 2008, 12:43 PM
Credit crunch claims Novell conference
The Linux firm's chief marketing officer, John Dragoon, wrote on Novell's website that the cancellation was the result of potential attendees' hesitancy at confirming their places, due to being "under increasing pressure to reduce travel and other controllable expenses".
According to Dragoon, the information that Novell would traditionally have imparted at BrainShare will now be disseminated through "online classes, virtual conferences and local tours".
This might be the trend for the future. There may not be a direct analogy with the impending death of Macworld, for example, but it's clear that the evolution of the web is making these large-scale events increasingly unnecessary. With the rise of videoconferencing and dozens of blogs per niche subject, there are now many other, cheaper ways for a company to 'educate' its customers.
PreviousComments on this post
Nice post David,
Funnily enough I'm right in the middle of a feature on video-conferencing so I'd like to know if this is a contributing factor.
Also, I'm heavily involved with user groups and I know one (large US company) in particular is still having its developer symposium next year but its annual January board meeting will be done over the telephone rather than around a board table in Silicon Valley.
Another company, IBM in fact, has already booked up the Dolphin resort in Florida for the next two years for its Rational conference. Something I heard in general chit chat with the bigwigs at this year's event.
As for Novell, I've been in touch with them off and on for the last five years. I get good feedback from their office in the UAE every time I do work in the GCC market which I still do. But poor feedback for my US & UK work. I used to work for their UK PR manager... and I have never been invited to Brainshare. So go figure.
