Sorry to everyone that has been hanging on, I can now fill in the gaps.
We planned for an open and active group of people to provide assistance to the lounge.
Some topics were discussed and various promotional vendors were invited to assist.
Our intention is to host a party if you will, that lasts 4 days.
It was never meant to exclude anyone and in fact was viewed as an extremely good way to enhance communication, collaboration and just meet other like minded people or even people you have no other way to meet.
Ideally we saw it as a way for some specific time to blog, downtime, or just meet up with others.
Unfortunately, the Lotusphere team has decided not to grant us space for a lounge.
Although I did try to bend their ear with a few people, the bottom line is the premise fell on deaf ears as they saw it as a divisive item instead of a unification one.
Can't say I see it that way. In fact NOT having one creates more division because now I have to try to find or locate 50+ people I want to meet when it could have been much easier.
Twitter and cell phones will once again play a large part for most of us in Orlando trying to find another. Perhaps the RFID tags at Lotusphere can be enabled so the attendees can find other people they are searching for.
Having said all this I live in hope that we can all still come together somehow, aside from a certain BoF which usually gets accepted. Whoever handles the Blogger dinner, let me know if we can expand that idea and have it Sunday night or something like that. I know I for one would like to put face and voice to many of you and hopefully you feel the same.
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Wow, that is really too bad. I was looking forward to this as well.
ReplyDeleteI'll be at the Sherpa booth for sure as well as possibly moderating or presenting a topic or two.
Hope to meet up with you there.
Denny
Hopefully will get a few more minutes this time to talk compared to last year. We briefly ran into each other.
ReplyDeleteA great shame, Keith. I imagined the LS crew would see this as a positive addition.
ReplyDeletethere are several places that can be made standard meeting places without needing a dedicated room for bloggers.
ReplyDeleteSimply declare that "bloggers, if you're around, meet at the ______"
Maybe even specify a time of day or whatever. A bar, cafeteria, partnering area, whatever. Anywhere can work. Blogging is about making do with what you've got in the face of big organized journalism. So...make do.
That's pretty dumb on Lotusphere's part. How on Earth could they interpret this as divisive? I'm seriously p*ssed off about this. The only divisive thing is that Lotus is driving their most passionate tribe members away.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to be harsh on the Lotusphere team, they do have more important things to do than deal with a bunch of us. Although that was a premise I was trying to work with them on.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, you are right, but as I found, and others did as well, it's still hard although I guess we could just say we will have a set space and time each day to hang out, not quite the same but maybe a different way to look at it.
What say you all?
I really abhor taking internal discussions public -- being forced into it here is not a plus -- but this deserves comment.
ReplyDeleteNo one on the Lotusphere team used the word "divisive", and the proposal did not fall on "deaf ears".
We had a number of proposals on how to involve bloggers at Lotusphere. There is a pilot, for example, of a true blogger Lotusphere registration type, just like a press person or analyst. We capped the pilot at a relatively small number in order to see how many things we can do with the blogging community at LS09 - way beyond what we've done the last couple of years. (Note: If you are in the pilot, you already know).
We discussed the blogger lounge concept several times and several ways. A blogger room does not made sense because it would, as it would take bloggers -- the celebrities at Lotusphere who everybody knows and wants to talk to -- out of the mainstream flow. Lotusphere is about chance encounters, hallway or dining tent conversations, and hearing the buzz in the hall. We want the blogging community to be active in the energy of Lotusphere -- many of you personify the conference, so why take that energy away from the mainstream?
We looked at other scenarios and kept coming up with similar concerns. I am going to be paying attention at Macworld this year, where there is a blogger lounge on the show floor -- but it's sponsored by Microsoft, boo hiss.
I admit that finding people at Lotusphere has challenges -- but I don't think the blogger lounge is the only solution. I have met almost every blogger in the community at Lotusphere -- either in a BoF, an executive Q&A, or at Kimono's. BALD on Saturday is a great orientation. I am sure there are other creative ideas that the community can come up with in the next 75 days.
Ed, I didn't ask you to post your thoughts, but I appreciate them. It has been out there and people had asked so I posted about it.
ReplyDeleteBALD doesn't help those that arrive on Sunday or Monday, but that's not the issue, just a comment.
Not sure what a true blogger would be. Someone that posts daily? Weekly? For more than a year? 2? 3?
Only on products or solutions? Foreign/Domestic?
Either way it's nice to know something is afoot.
Now I'll go and post something to ideajam for blogger meetup ideas.
Bad news indeed. I understand Ed's reasoning, but it's so hard to find people you want/need to find in the LS people-jungle.
ReplyDeleteJust a thought: If the dwindling CLP Lounge (or whatever it's called) is still there, we could 'take' this one. Will get some 'life in the brewery' !