Text Analytics Summit — a promising idea gone bad
I hope to be proved wrong, but I think the Text Analytics Summits going forward will be a waste of time and money. The model the first two years was the same, with key features being:
- Lots of vendor-organized application stories.
- Half a day of badly-organized industry overview.
Most of the attendees are vendors, and the ones I talk with almost uniformly agree they didn’t learn much, and they didn’t meet many prospects either.
If you’re a user or prospect, you can do as well inviting vendors to make sales pitches to you, and eventually calling references. If you’re a vendor, it’s a great place to socialize with your buddies from other firms, but that’s about it. If you’re press or analyst — well, it’s an easy drive for me in Boston, and I’m really focused on this subject area, so I’ve been attending. But almost no other press or analysts went, and I honestly can’t blame them for staying away.
Could this change? Yes. But in my discussions with the organizers, I’ve gotten zero reason to think that it will.
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I’ve been an analyst in this area for many years too and thought about attending (I’m in NYC so not far either).
However, the organizers have the show have demanded that we pay full price to attend, which put the end to our interest, as that is not a good way to encourage press or analyst attendance and is not common practice. Plus, vendors I have spoken to that did attend also told me stories similar to the ones you mention here.
Nick
Likely because I also have significant presence in the press, they’ve been gracious enough to give me complimentary entry. But I noticed almost no other press or analysts there — 2-3 total a year, counting me. And that includes speakers.
Nick,
Please get in touch with me at ravi@textanalyticsnews.com, I would like to gather your thoughts to ensure you have a better experience this time round.
Thanks,
Ravi Virpal
Director
Text Analytics News.
[…] The Text Analytics Summit has been troubled for years, but evidently things have gotten worse. […]