

Types of Speakers to Ban from your Tech Conference - jasonadriaan
http://www.bandwidthblog.com/2011/05/24/2-types-of-speakers-to-ban-from-your-tech-conference
I’ve attended a number of tech conferences in South Africa and at every one of them one of two topics seem to raise it’s head, and frankly I think we need to ban the types of people pushing these topics on stage from speaking…
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fredoliveira
While you admit on Twitter [1] that your post is formulaic to get attention, I
can't exactly let you get away with your second point regarding VCs and
Angels. You are in Cape Town, which tells me we can be visiting different
conferences or having very different experiences, but in the case of those
I've seen/participated in, the story is _very_ different. The angels I
frequently see speak _have_ indeed written lines of code. The fact that you're
posting this on this very site is ironic, considering who runs it.

Want to look at a few high profile examples?

* Chris Dixon: needs no intro, coded many lines of code at and before hunch.

* Conway: a salesman in the past, you take this one (although he's seen more startups than you've written LOC)

* Hoffman: has written many LOC

* Thiel: yup

* Andreessen: I've seen it first-hand

* Bezos: yup

* Sacca: business guy, no LOC

* Paul Graham: you're using his LOC to drive traffic to your site

The list goes on. Fact is there _are_ angel investors and VCs that have not
written software, but since when does that truly actually matter when they're
giving you advice on how to run a business, namely finding out what people
want and give it to them? Your comment in this very thread about banning
speakers who use office for their slides (who cares?) tells me of your
naivety, but here's a final tip: be formulaic all you want, but talk about
things you know for a fact.

[1] <https://twitter.com/jasonadriaan/status/72972319080976384>

~~~
jasonadriaan
Hey @f. Firstly you're reading my tweets out of context. Yep I'm sure the
environment is vastly different and that VCs and Angels are more salted in the
States. The names on your list I would obviously PAY to see. But this doesn't
hold true for the guys surfacing in Africa and asked to speak at conferences.

~~~
buyx
You did a smart thing (from a vote-getting perspective) by omitting the words
"South Africa" from your title.

~~~
jasonadriaan
lol

------
mmaunder
Completely agree re the social media gurus. Ugh!

Regarding investors: I think you're describing a quality issue, rather than a
subject matter problem. Many investors used to be entrepreneurs (mine were)
and were massively successful. Starting entrepreneurs can learn a ton from
these guys and they are pure gold every step of the way.

Then you get angel investors who got rich through some other means. e.g.
through inheritance or stock options in a company they had nothing to do with
starting or running. These are often to be avoided for two reasons. 1. They
want to be the CEO they never were - in your company. 2. They have no
experience or knowledge about creating and building a business beyond what
they read online.

What makes it worse is that they and the entrepreneurs they invest in see
their wealth as qualifying them to advise or participate in the business.
Avoid these guys as speakers at events and as investors.

There is a third class that I've neglected to mention. Super-angels or
experienced VC's can also be very helpful through their extensive dealings
with other companies they've invested in, often in your space. Super-angels
who are former entrepreneurs are the absolute best early stage investors.

ps: Greetings from a fellow South African. [based in the US]

~~~
jasonadriaan
Hello there from Cape Town :)

Thanks for the insight, yeah I agree totally. I'm sure there are a number of
VC's/Angels worth listening to but the vast majority of them don't know what
they're talking about imho.

~~~
buyx
_I'm sure there are a number of VC's/Angels worth listening to but the vast
majority of them don't know what they're talking about imho._

If you mean in the South African context, then you are probably right. Has
South Africa produced any notable software startup successes? Vinny Lingam got
some press for that Yola/Synthesite app, but that's it (Shuttleworth doesn't
fit in this category since he made money by selling his CA).

It's one of the concerns I have with Google Umbono as well - how well can the
angels recognise potential for success if they haven't had any themselves?

I see a lot of cargo-cultism, but something is missing.

~~~
thomasgerbe
"It's one of the concerns I have with Google Umbono as well - how well can the
angels recognise potential for success if they haven't had any themselves?"

Wait, how do you know which angel investors are involved? On their website,
they wrote "We will not be publicizing the names and details of our Angel
investors without their express permission. A typical Angel with Umbono will
be a tech savvy entrepreneur with an established track record in the
industry."

~~~
buyx
Fair point, I looked at their mentors and assumed their benchmarks for angels
were similar: <http://www.google.co.za/intl/en/umbono/people.html>

------
adaml_623
Also the sexist ones who harass the female delegates.

------
bruce511
It's not the material that makes a session bad, it's the speaker. Ok, that's a
bit harsh, and some material is more interesting than others, but it's easy
for a highly technical session to be dead-boring, and it's also possible for a
session by a marketing type, or investor to be super interesting.

An engaging speaker will expand your understanding - bringing elements of
their expertise to you in a way which you can leverage it yourself. An
engaging speaker is one that takes you outside your comfort zone, but at the
same time gives you some practical encouragement or advice that you can take
away and use yourself.

Of course getting the 30 minute "you must be on facebook and twitter" speech
is pretty dull to people already on those platforms. But understanding the
concepts behind why, and when, one media works over another, or how to use
those media to reach your core market can be enormously interesting, and
rewarding. Or it can be deadly dull. It all depends on the speaker.

Investors are another enormous source of information, but it takes more than
just fluff to make a great presentation. It's the speakers ability to reach
you, and keep you interested, which separate great from average speakers.

By contrast I've been to tech events where the speaker was clearly a tech-
head, and shouldn't be allowed near a stage under any circumstances.

Presenting is a skill, which can be developed and improved. Don't knock the
material, knock the presenter. Better yet, start presenting yourself to
improve the standard accepted.

(funny story: I was in Australia at an event and there was some dude from
India doing a pitch on out-sourcing. The mic was having trouble, and his
accent was hard to understand at times. I was at the back, and next to me a
true blue Aussie was doing his emails. When he finished that, about 30 minutes
into the presentation, he looks up, and in his normal (very loud) speaking
voice asks "what the ____is this guy talking about?". )

~~~
Cherian_Abraham
Sorry. I must bite.

Your little anecdote added neither substance or context, rather than
presenting a very thinly coated attempt at making fun of a guy with a
different accent. Atleast that's what it felt like, reading it. So do explain
why it was the presenter's fault that the "true blue Aussie" typing up his
long email did not feel he should follow the presentation?

Not everyone can be a Guy Kawasaki. But over time, people can aspire to be
like him, and they can do that by having the balls to stand up and speak to a
crowd every chance they get. Sometimes you miss, but eventually you will
figure out what works with a crowd.

So next time, skip the thinly veiled attempts at xenophobia and lay out a
compelling argument instead.

~~~
bruce511
Sorry, my goal wasn't to make any sort of racist implication. Rather my point
was that a boring speaker (which he was, and I didn't make clear) is, well
boring. Personally I love Aussies because of their no-nonsense approach. This
guy just said what everyone was thinking. In too many conferences I go to
everyone just sits around pretending to look interested.

My apologies for any offense caused.

------
mgkimsal
Certainly blog posting is somewhat useful, but give feedback directly to the
organizer. Assuming that the blog post alone was intended to fill that role,
I'd suggest a direct email or perhaps even phone call with the organizers to
talk one on one.

As an organizer who just put my first event (indieconf) on last year, and am
planning my second iteration, honest feedback is golden. I had a few people
who shot from the hip (thanks!), and I'm doing what I can to address those
points this time around, but they were _mostly_ minor points. I'm left
thinking either no one really cared all that much, or it really was so amazing
there's nothing to improve on - I don't think either extreme is true though.

I learned I did something poorly, and am trying to rectify it - getting
feedback about particular sessions. Almost all the comment cards given out
after the sessions were good or great - a few neutral - but less than a
handful that were _bad_ reviews. I initially thought "wow, we did awesome". I
then realized people who'd left a session because it wasn't meeting their
needs were not filling out the cards in the first place(!). Any ideas about
how to collect that sort of feedback, short of specifically asking people to
come find me or leave a note at the front desk about egregiously bad
experiences? I've noticed people tend to bottle things up at an event, then
blog about things later when there's absolutely no chance of fixing anything.

~~~
jasonadriaan
I guess I could to that but it would be an e-mail to like hundreds of people,
easier just to blog about it. Also this is much more entertaining :P

~~~
mgkimsal
Was 'the organizer' hundreds of people? Maybe I didn't understand the type of
function it was. Typically there's just one or a small group of people who
coordinate an event like that. Giving them your direct feedback will help make
future events better. :)

~~~
jasonadriaan
Well the post is my reflections on a number of conferences. That's why I said
hundreds of people, because I've been to plenty of em. :)

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agentultra
I stopped going to conferences in my area for this very reason. Even the
"unconferences" that are supposed to be by and for developers are riddled with
marketing people and money people. Both very important roles to be sure, but I
cannot fathom why they continue to overwhelm tech conferences.

They should be at marketing conferences and business conferences.

~~~
c1sc0
"I cannot fathom why they continue to overwhelm tech conferences". Because
they're on a fishing trip, the catch is devs and the bait is money. Hackathons
are the new tech conferences because you have to _prove_ your tech skills to
get in.

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crikli
sed 's/vc_angels/bureaucrats_politicians/g'

I recently attended a conference that billed itself as being focused on
"entrepreneurship and innovation." One of the speakers was Aneesh Chopra, the
"CTO of the United States" and the other was a representative of the
inappropriately titled "Startup America Partnership." We were also treated to
twenty minute stump by a Ben Nelson, the Senator that pissed off the entire
state of Nebraska when he extorted pounds of pork in exchange for his vote on
Obamacare.

None of the speakers did more than illustrate that the bureaucracy they
represented was/is antithetical to entrepreneurship and innovation, and I've
never seen the energy get sucked out of a room full of energetic people more
quickly.

------
paulnelligan
I guess it depends on your bias, if you're only interested in coding, then you
should stay away from marketing/business conferences ... that said, I can
relate to the idea that so called 'social media gurus' are snake oil salesmen.

~~~
Mavrik
True, but the title does explicitly state TECH conferences. I think those
aren't the same as markeing/business conferences :)

------
jasonkolb
I agree to an extent. I've heard a lot of VC's that I really enjoyed, I love
hearing their opinions on which sectors are heating up and where the future of
technology as a business lies.

That said, VC speakers, especially on panels, seem to devolve into a
discussion of the VC industry. Whether it's "frothy", deal term trends, etc,
etc. The stuff that is relatively easy to look up but doesn't have a whole ton
of bearing on a real business. ("Real" in the sense that you'd do it anyway
regardless of how/when/if funding happens.)

------
Luyt
Also ban:

3) Speakers who say 'uhmm' before and after each sentence.

4) Speakers who read bullets from powerpoint slides.

~~~
wyclif
5) Speakers who take snack breaks in the middle of their talk, audible
munching and all.

------
westicle
Am I the only one who was expecting "Female bloggers who won't sleep with you"
to be one of the categories?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2571874>

Always pleasantly surprised that although HN lives in the internet, it is not
of the internet.

------
Tharkun
There's a third type: RMS.

~~~
runjake
I'm not a big RMS fan, but I'd pay to see him talk.

He's accomplished far more than perhaps anyone on HN. Like it or not, he
started and nurtured all this (Free Software/OSS).

