Flood of invites, Tsunami of events, and a drowning CIO

It is fairly evident that the economy’s achieved a turnaround. Most key indicators (including inflation) are heading north. The IT industry is also seeing an upswing, and increased spending from customers. So vendors are now back with fresh marketing budgets. In their endeavor to woo CIOs, the number of seminars, events, offsite workshops and entertainment has suddenly increased manifold.

Levels of noise have reached such a crescendo that if the CIO were to accept every invite that came his way, he’d probably spend a couple of days every month at work. To add to this, the assorted freebies and writing instruments given away at each such a gathering would fill up available office space.

The question is, are there no other ways to engage the IT decision makers?

Typical event invites have eye catching headlines interspersed with buzz words like “Cloud Computing” or “Green” (the hot favorites for now), which is enough to entice the CIO’s participation. The content has rarely any connection to these across most events. However, since there still remains fuzziness about interpretation of these, the poor IT Heads end up hoping to gain some insights about what these really mean for them in real life. The cycle continues with almost every vendor, irrespective of whether they are software players, hardware vendors or just service providers. Another noticeable trend has been to couch the topic in business terms like “Agility” or “Profitable Growth”. CIOs start wondering if they would miss some key trend, and again end up disillusioned within the first hour.

Most events are scheduled for the evening, and start with a technology discourse—supposed to be presented by a thought leader. Poor last minute substitutions are becoming the norm (unavoidable circumstances, reminds me of the “technical glitch” with airlines), with a Sales or Marketing person who ends up reading through the presentation. This is followed by the panel discussion with a set of clueless speakers.

A frustrated audience sits through the ordeal out of sheer decency. A few end up catching up on email or leave with their cell phones glued to their ear, citing exigencies that need their attention. Those who do stay until the end find the networking damp, the time spent a sheer waste, and promise themselves not to attend another event.

Give us a break—respect the CIO!

Marketing budgets thus spent rarely provide value to the IT companies. I believe that the IT industry needs to evaluate ROI models used while planning such forays. While I agree about the need to engage decision makers in discussion and dialogue, other alternatives can be used with greater efficacy. Unearth real life business problems, and explore how the offered solution can practically solve it. Use case studies, customer speak, and focused discussion around the issue.
Don’t get upset when 10% of confirmations turn up for the event; ‘regrets’ are the enlightened ones who have suffered similar gatherings. The ‘no shows’ have probably spoken to CIOs who declined your requests, or found another interesting venue (at the courtesy of a different IT vendor).

So consider accepting substitutions from the next layer of participating IT personnel. These participants are more likely to engage in a technical discussion than the CIO. But this will not happen for too long, since they’ll also evolve towards becoming business savvy, and get flooded with invites.