I’ve been watching occasional snippets from the CIO Summit event in London today via Twitter and find myself pining for the event (which I was able to attend last year). I applied this year, but because of my new found status as a “vendor”, I was refused entry…
This perfectly sums up the state of the traditional IT industry. An event for practitioners, billed as discussing “the future of the industry”, but where mistrust between clients and vendors is so high that the people who use the products and services won’t trust the people who make them to be there. And, having been on the other side for so much of my career, I can understand why. Who wants to be perpetually sold stuff that you neither need nor want?
I wonder whether the IT industry is unique in this regard? Last week I met with Matt Deegan, who runs a radio consulting firm (radio as in “pop pickers” as opposed to “wireless networks”), and that industry seems to be far less mistrusting of the vendors. There again, vendors in the radio sector are way less powerful than in the IT world.
Oh well… back to wistfully staring at the Twitter stream…
mmitII 
Personally I dont care if vendors are present or not (as long as it not overt selling) its more about the fundamental quality and bread/depth of presenters and attendees. Btw I would characterise this cio summit as ‘traditional’…..
The answer is in the question surely. The IT world is hooked on sales and sales people, until that changes there will be a need for practioner only events.
Sadly, Mark, I think you are probably right. I’m doing all I can to change it from the inside, though! It will also be interesting to see if the world of Cloud services starts to change this… will subscriptions to an ongoing service promote a less aggressive style of sales?