gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards"

then don't agree Hugh.. the reason why geekdinners appeal to me ( and why I chose to initiate them in Denmark) is the simple fact, that it is a event with no reply adress ( I mean there is no "sponsor" selling anything) except for the person who initiated the geekdinner gets the " nice one " credit.

so if geekdinners aren't people meeting and talking.. what is it then ?

a chance to market yourself ? - yes off cause, that's the "networking" methaphor coming into action.

frankly Im just a kitten who wants to sell stuff, and have fun doing it. I tend to get my contacts at conferences and physical appearance at geekdinners etc. this eventually leads to business sometimes.

but in addition I get to talk to all these really creative people - who inspire me ( including you Hugh)...

I just think there should be venues that are left unsponsored...such as geekdinners.. otherwise the whole concept of geekdinners goes up in smoke for me.

so if the blogosphere should work well, it needs to be sponsored, bought up and fought for by bigger companies ?

because that is the real world.

so what about open - source ?

"It has to somewhat mirror the real world"...(hear, hear - there's nothing to be scared of)...happy christmas y'ule...

Henriette, it was a geek dinner, not a church service ;-)

my point exactly, nothing new under the sun...

"business as usual" -

I was expecting more.

and church service ? Hey; I wasn't the one who talked an evangelist into joining us ;)

ohh yeah, and what about open - source ?

Open Source is very, very close to becoming the "next irritating buzzword" ;-)

nice one.. I will start using it all the time then..

"it's all happening maaan" - "open source".. .I'll post a little something on my blog and we can get it going again..

If companies are not supposed to show up at Geek Dinners, well then count me out next time, every time I go somewhere I represent myself and my company - like it or not.

But this rings bells of irony in my ears, because as far I remember the tables at the first Copenhagen Geek Dinner were all filled up with businesscards from Nuevolution? And at the after party, the magazine Kenzu42 "bought" some whuffie (does anyone remember that buzzword? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie) by providing a place to stay and alcohol to drink.

I think you're on a holy mission that's not going to happen in this world Henriette. As Hugh suggests, you'd only find that in Cluetrain Utopia. But is this really such an important discussion? I am pretty sure it isn't.

Hm. If geek dinners fail to reach their goal of getting people to meet, they'll fail and not be visited. If sponsorships could lead to that, then they could be a problem. I don't see that happening.

And, as the crowd consists of early adopters, they'll nimbly move on to the next way of meeting if "their thing" got tainted and useless.

I don't see a sponsored dinner as useless.

I'd be curious to know what kind of companies would be interested in sponsoring geek dinners. Why? To what end? (I'm not mocking any intent, just curious.)

A sponsored dinner changes the dynamic, or so I assume. In my little town, Ann Arbor, I find that there two types of gatherings for the techies and info workers.

There are birds-of-feather gatherings, where we emerge from our cubes, chow down or tipple, and talk about work. There are networking events, were everyone says rah-rah, in attempt to trump the next person with an outlook more positive.

The former are worth my time, the latter are not.

It seems like the new gatherings that spring up, start out as casual meetings, but eventually, someone shows up with an agenda, and the dynamic changes.

Does sponsored = selling out?

I handle programs for a local b2b marketing group. I have solicited speakers and developed our programs without thought of what sponsors would want. It's based on what would rock the world of our members and guests, while still walking away with something.

We still garner sponsors, who get a little recognition to a prime audience. But, the meat and potatos are content and community.

Content, community, and sponsors can coexist.

Hold the train, Hugh !

I know I have been gone for a few months from your blog, but when did you stop screaming, "markets are conversations"? When did your cliche (or the one you seemed to love), die?

Me confused.

Anyone who believes this whole blog malarkey is motivated by enthusiasm, link love and OSS navel gazing hasn't had to put food on the table for a long time.

I take it Hugh that people gave you a right ear bashing for the free Stormhoek wine or that MSN (god forbid) coughed up the spondoolies for half the food they all troughed?

Or am I missing something in this great non-ROi story?

I have given a full response on Henriette's blog to why MSN supported this event. http://henrietteweber.com/2005/12/14/im-being-sponsored-blogging-turned-ugly/

But if Hugh or a majority of the participants would prefer MSN not to be involved then I would be happy to withdraw our future support.

Sam

If blogging isn't conversation, then maybe, perhaps... it is bazaar.

;p

Hmm.. I'm not sure if that quite captures it, but there's a word out there that's somewhere between bazaar and conversation. But it's on the tip of my tongue.

(Having never been to one...)

It seems to me that a geek dinner is a geek dinner (or drinkfest or whatever) insofar as it's organized on the web, the topics of conversation are likely to be geeky to one degree or another, and it's open to anyone who wants to come (or at least first-come first-served if the space is limited).

If a company picks up some or all of the tab, great. If the company wants to give away free stuff, great. If they send some of their people and those people talk about the company stuff, fine, everybody's going to do that for their own company/gig/hobby anyway.

However, if it gets to the point of the company giving some kind of presentation, or people from the company pushing it aggressively or otherwise pulling salesman tricks, then I think it's something else. Then it's a company event, and they're paying for your time and not just your goodwill. In which case they better cover the cocktails:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/fashion/sundaystyles/18DRINKS.html

But if Hugh is organizing a dinner and Stormhoek *doesn't* provide free wine, or if Scoble is and Microsoft doesn't pick up the tab, I'd say shame on the companies for missing the goodwill opportunity and for not encouraging their blog marketers.

(Hmm, how about a shootout where Stormhoek and a couple competitors provide free wine, and the bloggers take notes?)

WE SHOULD ALL SWITCH OFF OUR COMPUTERS AND GET SOME EXERCISE !
That's all I had to say.

If I understood correctly, Henriette's objection wasn't to Microsoft's sponsorship but rather to MS's incorporating a pitch and making it some kind of a Microsoft Event, which it hadn't been announced as.

Or am I missing something?

I still think sponsorship is fine, schwag is fine, but captive-audience presentations cross the line. Just let your geeks talk to the other geeks about why they like you; isn't that enough?

If it's not enough, then make it a "Microsoft Geek Dinner" and everyone knows in advance what to expect.

You are missing something, Frosty. You weren't there.

1. The thing is, £20 cover plus non-free drinks (in central London) is an expensive evening for some people, especially for some of the students. So I had no problem making it cheaper for them.

We didn't tell people about the MSN sponsorship just because it wasn't a certainty until the last minute, so we thought it would be a nice surprise for people to arrive and find their cover charge had been cut in half.

Sam's (MSN) speech was short and sweet, and said very little other than "Thanks, we think you're great, we're happy to be part of this and MSN is listening to you".

MSN did not stipulate that Sam got to make a pitch in exchange for their support. After Robert made his speech I handed the mike over to Sam, thanking him for their support, as a common courtesy.

To not have done so would have been ungracious, IMHO.

3. Nobody called it a "Microsfot Dinner", except for people working at the restaurant, simply because they remembered Robert from last time. No, it never occurred to me to go around telling the waitstaff individually, "You can't call it a Microsoft dinner, you have to call it a geek dinner".

4. After the four main parties who organised the party made their speeches (Me, Robert, Stormhoek and MSN), each one about a minute long... I held up the microphone and asked "Anybody else have anything to say/announce?" Sarah Blow (spurred on by her friends) then made announcement about her upcoming girl geek dinner.

i.e. Anyone who wanted the mike could've had it. So the system was by no means "closed".

No, Hugh, I meant "am I missing something about Henriette's complaint?" I did notice that I wasn't there. ;-)

Seems to me there are two distinct comment threads intertwined here, one about "what's an appropriate level of corporate involvement in an event like a geek dinner" and another about "was Microsoft behaving badly with this particular one."

(And the same thing on Henriette's blog as well.)

I have an opinion on the former thread, and none on the latter.

Mr. Bøtter is missing the point here, and I am very suprised about his version of the first CPH geekdinner !. first of all Bøtter, I don't know if you saw Daen ( who was a participant actually "throwing" the businesscards on the table it wasn't a sponsor thingy.. and second of all - do you recall that we went to bars before we went to Line ( kenzu42)'s house - because everything was packed.
if we had gone to your house would it be sponsorship ? did she proclaim any adverts while singing singstar with me ?

a holy mission ? get a life...!

I will comment more later, I have to be out of here 2 minutes ago

Jacob, I think your are the most ungratefull guest I have ever invited to my private home.

The only reason why we ended at my place, were that the alternative, were that people were splitting up instead of stayid together. I really just wanted to be polite, nothing more and nothing else, and is just not a habbit of mine, to charge people for the buzz and liquor, I ALWAYS leave it to ppl, if the wants to give anything back. So no_ it was not the company or the magazine who invited you guys, it was me opening my home for strangers.

But for you info, I have sayid no thanks to the next geekdinner, becuarse I think and feelt, some of the ppl, really trashed my place, and I really dont want to have that experience again with strangers. So you dont have to feel that I "sponsored" a good initative.

Christ!

Hey Sam - keep the freebies coming - there's a lot of hungry mouths out there in the blogosphere and I personally would love to tuck into MSNs blogger relations budget.

I wasn't there but I can still say it was a great gesture. If I was putting one on I'd be calling you to get the freebies. Not the other way around. And I'd blog about it. And I bet no-one would get snarky, they'd get satisfaction.

I agree with Dennis...

I don't agree ;)

Ok, seems like people weren't hearing me. Is this discussion really so important? And oh god, do you have to over interpret everything I said? I am not ungrateful that Line made a great venue for the afterparty, but nevertheless it gave Kenzu42 some whuffie, just like a positive blog entry would do. My point was not that it was a bad afterparty, but that I could hardly imagine anyone having trouble with staying at a place for free, compared to being at a bar where you have to pay. It was all positive Line, don't get me wrong - I think it was great and I only said what I said because I'd like something like that happen again without a big discussion on sponsorships :-)

Now, I do know that Daen didn't pay anyone for the allowance to drop his businesscards, but no matter if he did it for fun or for work, it still seems corporate to me. What if he had been employed by MSN and not Nuevolution? Would you then have removed the cards? I am just trying to see the balance here, you don't want a sponsored geek dinner, but you do want a geek dinner with free adverts? I'd prefer that if people really do want to show up and make an advert out of themselves, that they then somehow sponsor the event for the benefit of others. For example a deduction of the price of the dinner would have been good :-)

I'd suggest that for our own, and Hugh's sake, that we end the discussion, I really didn't mean to cause any harm - but seems people are taking this a little bit too literal for my liking. Chill people, chill :-)

Just checking something, Hugh ...

Seems your comments engine doesn't like my URL - tried to leave a comment here the other day and your spam filter objected. Ended up removing the URL from the post and my test (previous comment) worked.
Now I did have something to say about this, but it's all a bit tired now ... I blogged it, but I'm too scared to tell you where, otherwise this comment won't be accepted either!

Bøtter, there is a VERY big difference between "networking" (giving out your business cards and "promoting" your company by speaking to people) and "sponsoring"...

if you don't want your comments to come out harsh, and offend people - you should look into your style of writing...;)

And there's a big difference between networking and just trashing out businesscards to a bunch of strangers you don't know.

I still don't see how a sponsorship could hurt this type of event, I wasn't really interested in a networking vs. sponsoring discussion, rather I'd like to see your response to what the others commented here.

Maybe my writing style offends some people, but I am pretty sure the "get a life"-style doesn't work that good either. Maybe in kindergarten, but oh well.. kindergarten vs. blogosphere, where's the difference :-)

Bøtter: I think I answered to everything here and give my point of view on my blog ( did you read my blogpost ?)

what is your point exactly then ? you are stating something in one comment, and then pulling it back in another..

frankly Im puzzled as can be...

but if there's something you want me to answer, feel free to ask... ;)

Guys, get a room! Jesus...

;-)

okay Hugh, sorry.. Im done now * brushes the dirt of my clothes* ....

At the risk of reopening this debate, which to my dismay seems to have gone to DEFCON III over some fairly minor points.

At the Copenhagen Geek Dinner, the Nuevolution cards were all I had on me. I apologise for being profligate with them, but in my experience it's just one of the things you do when you meet people for the first time -- hand out business cards, if you have them. And for goodness sakes, it's a business card with a logo on it, which in my world is about as innocuous as it gets. I have gathered a huge collection from my 10 years working in London, many of which are associated with happy memories of people, places and events. I tend to make notes about people/events on the back of the cards (whereas Hugh makes art out of his :-). Nuevolution, by the way, has no interest in sponsoring anything like CGD : it's a biotech company, and I just work there as a laboratory rat (well, system admin, but same difference).