IT360 Show April 30 - May 2, 2007

[Christopher Browne]

On 1/22/07, Colin McGregor <colinmc151-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On the question of swag I have already been hearing
> suggestions for big/fancy/expensive swag items (like
> custom T-shirts), which I am going to do my best to
> veto. Bottom line on swag items is that the stuff has
> to be cost effective, namely if we spend $500 to
> attract say $200 worth of new members then the show is
> not worth our time/effort.

Let me suggest a different tack...  (By the way, I'm in a position to
veto the fancy/expensive stuff, too, and I certainly will...)

The question to ask about any would-be idea about swag is
  What good does it really do us???

The reason why companies give things out at shows, and indeed, why
commerce takes place in the first place, is that people value whatever
it is that they're getting *more* than they value whatever it is that
they're trading for it.

We're already intending to do that in the sense that GTALUG folk
intend to spend time at the booth spending their (more or less
valuable) time speaking with people that happen by.

I expect the benefits seen to mostly be of an intangible nature; in
view that most of the costs are also intangible, that seems a good
trade :-).

I don't see that giving out T-shirts, which would presumably go to
mostly NON-members, who, if they value things properly, would *MORE*
value a 1/2h conversation that provided useful ideas, is a
particularly good deal for either us or for the recipients.

Arguments can be made to the effect that we should be giving some
things out; I'm happy to listen to and consider *good* arguments that
present *good* reasons to do so.  Time is short enough that *poor*
reasons should be quickly dropped.

- "Because it's cool" is a poor reason.
- "Because I like swag" is a poor reason.

Good reasons do not necessarily need benefits that have dollar signs
beside them, but there does need to be a clear expectation of some
kind of benefit.
-- 
http://linuxfinances.info/info/linuxdistributions.html
"...  memory leaks  are  quite acceptable  in  many applications  ..."
(Bjarne Stroustrup, The Design and Evolution of C++, page 220)
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists