WIP Jam Sessions - Connecting Developers

The  Carnival is up for this week, aptly managed by Volker Hirsch of Volker on Mobile.  The Carnival is the weekly gathering of mobile blogs, conveniently arranged in one place for you to see the best of the week.  Apps Stores and the Palm Pre continue to be favorite topics, and an interesting post on mobile couponing.

What are you waiting for?  Go check it out!

Join us in Singapore!

WIP Connector Reception
Tuesday, June 16th
Brewerkz Riverside Point
30 Merchant Road #01-05/06 Riverside Point
Singapore
We’ll get Communicasia started off on the right foot.

Sponsored by NAVTEQ.

Sign up here.

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Other activities/events/parties at Communicasia 2009 (let me know if you know of others):

Monday, June 15th

Canada ICT Partnering Forum and Marketplace 2009
Marriott Singapore, Ballroom, Level 3
8:30am - 5:00pm
RSVP

Tuesday, June 16th

WIP Reception @ Communicasia
Brewerkz Riverside
7pm to 10pm - sponsored by NAVTEQ
RSVP

Wednesday, June 17th

NAVTEQ LBS Challenge Awards Ceremony
NAVTEQ Stand 3L2-07
3:30pm
People’s Choice Award Winner: Vote for your favorite by 2:30pm on Friday (June 19th) and be entered in raffle to win cool devices. Stop by NAVTEQ stand and view the 13 semifinalist applications.

Singapore-ASEAN-Sweden Networking Event at CommunicAsia 2009
The Swedish Pavilion at CommunicAsia 2009
Hall 4, Booth 4G4-01
3pm and 5pm
RSVP

Mobiquest Mobile Test Center Launch Reception
Crowne Plaza Chengi Airport, Chengal Ball Room
6pm - 8pm
RSVP

Singapore Business Partners’ Nite
Co-hosted with Media Development Authority(MDA) of Singapore
Genexis, Level 5, Fusionopolis
6:30pm - 9:30pm
Private Function

Thursday, June 18th

CommunicAsia Telco Drinks night
BQ Bar, 39 Boat Quay
6pm - late
S$30

FCCS Networking Party (French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore)
Bar Nebula
ONE°15 Marina Club - Bar Nebula, #01-01, 11 Cove Drive, Sentosa Cove
7pm - 9pm
RSVP

‘MEF Connects’ Networking Party @ CommunicAsia 2009
Le Carillon @ 41 Robertson Quay . 2nd Floor, Singapore Tyler Print Institute
7.30pm onwards
RSVP

The Carnival of Mobilists June 1  edition is up at Taptu.  The Carnival is a weekly collection of bloggers, hosted by one site.  Always a place to find great musing on our mobile world.

We just published the WIP monthly newsletter over the weekend, and I started off with a Rant on Event Registration - has it become meaningless? Well – I never expected the avalanche of responses - in fact the best response I’ve ever gotten to one of my newsletters.

Here’s what I said:

I’ve got a short rant if you’ll indulge me. What’s with event registration and attendance? There seems to be no correlation between who registers and who shows up. From what I understand from other event hosts, it also doesn’t correlate whether the event is free nor has a charge. Is it a function of too many events and activities that you try and cover your bases? Or is an event registration not really a commitment to attend? How many reminders are needed?

Here are some of the responses:

• I honestly believe that the problem lies with conflicting events and unexpected business opportunities. … Several times I found myself wishing that there were fewer items to attend and that they would have had two different schedules so that I could have seen them…. My biggest complaint about most conferences these days is that too many people attend that are not there to be productive. … I believe that conferences need to attract more business attention as information that was once gained from the conference is now available on the internet. I think the focus on entertainment rather than knowledge will be the death of most conferences when budgets are tight and technology advancements in voice and video conferencing continue to surge forward.
• First, let me say you did a bang up job on WIPJam! Thanks for your hard work and skill. I, for one, believe it paid off in spades…… Second, I understand completely the rant. I had 28 RSVP’s for my son’s 14th birthday and 7 showed up, sticking me with a bowling bill for 21, cake, gifts, the works. Multipled by 20, throw in a luncheon and drink tickets, and I only have a small taste of your frustration..
• I think the mobile phone, ironically, has a lot to do with the change in attitude towards meeting up. When I grew up, you had a fixed time and place when you met someone and you stuck to it. In the mobile age, fixed arrangements are becoming less common. It’s more a case of ‘I’ll call you when I’m near’ or ‘I’ll call you when I’m free and find out where you are’ and lots of those ‘maybe’ meet-ups never happen. And I think this has spilled over into professional events and meetings too. We just don’t take the RSVP as seriously.
• Thanks for the thoughts. As a registered attendee who did attend, I would simply say that there are many competing activities that foil the best intentions of those who sign up.
• I like your rant about registrations. On a much smaller scale, I have the same rant about internal meeting invitations and people who don’t manage them well (accept then don’t show up; don’t reply but “magically” appear; respond tentatively but never confirm one way or the other). I’ve threatened to stop putting on some demos/reviews if people don’t start behaving!
• I can relate
• Thank you for the note but I am not sure if the rant was absolutely necessary…. I will not be joining you guys should I ever have the opportunity again as I did not appreciate the rant. I believe it is a risk an event organiser takes when organising something like this and I am sure no-shows have very valid reasons. Having been involved in some event organisation myself, there will never be a correlation between registrations and attendance.
• Appreciate your note and your rant about people not attending. I was one such person who could not attend the WIP Jam session that morning, due to the fact I had to indulge a customer at CTIA. I think it is rude not to attend, but more often than not, I have seen there are too much packing of stuff in these events, that you do tend to ensure you can decide between a couple of priorities on a certain day.

We tend to get a toss up at Jam, with about 1/3 of registrants not showing at all, and 1/3 that magically appear, and due to us holding Jams within other big events with distractions, there is a bit of flow throughout the day. So we typically ‘register’ about double the number of folks that are our ideal size of event. There is one company in particular that regularly registers 3-4 people, and not one shows up! This creates a bit of a challenge cutting off registration and having a waiting list, as we really do want the folks that really want to be there to be there.

As an event planner for over 25 years, I know what goes on behind the scenes that make registration important including:
• logistics like having enough lunch and chairs; yes, we do have to pay for lunches that don’t get eaten, so need to make some fairly accurate guestimates,
• and more importantly it’s also about getting the right content for the audience

But in addition to sympathy for event organizers, I’d like to see more respect shown for the speakers and the effort they put into their presentations. What continues to astound me are speakers that show up just for their speaking slot and then disappear. Folks attend events not only to listen to speakers but to have the opportunity to meet them.  As well, if you are a morning speaker and disappear, it’s also immensely disrespectful to the other speakers at the end of the day.

Please consider this the next time you sign up for something – as a speaker, conference or birthday party attendee! Remember, we want to make the event right for you, but we need to know who YOU are!

We are going to be sending out a survey to previous Jam attendees (we’ve organized 8 now), to get feedback on how we can make them better, and perhaps take a little less guessing out of our registration numbers.