Monday, July 19, 2010

Dear Technology Organization

I have gone to several conferences with your organization, and taken several classes with you all.  I read your website daily, and get several information feeds from you about updates to your technology field.  I have also taken part in several webcasts with you, but never again.

You see, your webcasts are, for the most part, put on by software and hardware vendors.  I don't care about that, since you go out of your way to make sure the webcasts are informative and not just dressed-up sales pitches.  The information given out is almost always very well done, interesting, and applicable.

But since I have to give my contact information when I register for the webcast, the vendors then know who I am and how to get in touch with me.  A few days after the webcast, my phone starts ringing with sales calls, and my email fills up with invitations to demo whatever product they are pushing.

I come to your organization for knowledge and information.  I understand that you all cannot just put on these presentations without some consideration to the economic part of the industry.  However, I do not wish to be subjected to two weeks of unsolicited emails and phone calls in exchange for a 45 minute webcast on securing Linux and Solaris.

I will continue to attend your conferences and webcasts that are not put on by vendors, and I look forward to taking as much training from you as my company will pay for.

But I will no longer be attending webcasts that you allow a software or hardware vendor to create.  My time and my attention are better spent doing the job that I apply your information to than answering the phone and trying to politely tell a salesman to never call me again.

1 comment:

Sidney said...

And this is why you should have a google voice number. When you want to talk to them you forward it to your real number, when you don't you set it to do not disturb.

Dito email. Pickup some cheap domain and the Google for your domain service. Every vendor I deal with gets a unique email address for me. As soon as I start getting spammed I put in a rule to route that email address to the trash and never have to worry about it again.

So far it works pretty well for me.

Confuses the dickens out of a company though when you tell them your email is VerndorName@mydomain.com

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