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AlwaysOn: Final Wrap-up
Here is my overall wrap-up from the AlwaysOn conference in NYC this week. Check out all of the coverage.
Technology
Overall, the technology at this conference was some of the best I have experienced. The WiFi worked perfectly and some of the connection speeds were better than I have ever experienced. The main demo room had 10 or so 52" plasma panels showing the live chat. Very, very cool. They also had a webcast as well. Top marks for the technology!
Workshop Sessions
Maybe I missed the notice, but the conference felt like DEMO in the sense that it was a lot of 6 minute CEO demonstrations with a few workshops as a bonus. The room was a bit small (the staff told me they removed the blogger tables to hold more chairs. Each of the sessions really could have been longer and would have benefited from at least another hour. The longer time would have improved my overall rating for the sessions dramatically.
The mashup session was my favorite as the moderator allowed questions during the chat. I was looking most forward to the power blogger discussion. This one seemed to let me down the most, mostly because it was just a general discussion rather than a "top tips" to be successful. The sessions at SES were stronger overall.
CEO Demos
You can read some of my reviews of the CEO demos here. These CEOs probably paid a pretty penny to have 6 minutes on stage. The Payperpost guy decided to use a bunch of his time with fancy PowerPoint transitions. Most of the live chat was asking about the business plans and models for the companies. Rovion appeared to be bashed a bit in the live chat. Most liked the ClipSync demo, he engaged the audience with his basketball in Israel story. This, my friends, is the key.
Final thoughts
I enjoyed the two days of AlwaysOn. The staff really helped a lot to make this a great conference. If you plan to run a conference, you might want to talk to the AlwaysOn team about how they managed the facility and the technology. I look forward to attending (and hopefully paneling (!) at the next AlwaysOn gathering.
