Thursday, November 14, 2013

Conferences and follow-up emails

When you register for a conference, they normally ask you to give them your email address so that they can communicate with you. What also happens, most of the time, is the vendors and sponsors of the conference also get your email address.

I don't totally understand giving all the vendors my email address because there may be some vendors that don't meet the needs of my company or my clients. The reason I don't like this is that the vendors also normally have the scanner where they can scan your name badge to get your contact information. If they are scanning you, it means that you went to the booth and made contact with someone.

Recently, I missed a conference that I had registered to go to because of other commitments. Now I am receiving emails from the various vendors thanking me for attending the conference and stopping by their booth. It is amazing because I know I didn't go to the conference, so it is frustrating to get all these emails that if the vendors had done the work correctly I wouldn't be receiving.

In the past, I also received phone calls from vendors wanting to know if they could assist me and my organization by answering questions. Normally during this call, they also thank me for dropping by their booth at the conference. The funny thing is some of these vendors are the booths I intentionally didn't drop by at the conference because they don't meet the needs of my company, or my client's needs.

So, if vendors really want to do their job, they should only be contacting the attendees that dropped by their booth and not the entire group of attendees or worse the group of registered attendees.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Do As I Say

“Do as I say, not as I do” is a saying that so many of us have heard.

I have recently dealt with just that myself, and figured it was time to write about why I think this is so wrong. A friend of mine was on Facebook one day complaining about being unfriended by someone without an explanation. I understand that it is frustrating to try and communicate with a person only to discover that you are no longer friends on Facebook, but those things happen.

Now just a couple of weeks ago this friend got upset with me for reasons I do not know and guess what she did. She unfriended me on Facebook without an explanation, so I guess her thinking is everyone is supposed to give her an explanation, but she doesn't have to give others an explanation.

If you are going to complain about someone else's behaviour, and you do this publicly, you should remember that you should act the way you think the other person should have acted. Yes, the saying should be “Do as I say, and I do”. Don't complain and then do exactly what you complained about.