A PR representative from CNET contacted me a few days ago about having one of their writers speak at Podcast and Portable Media Expo. It is a writer I actually follow so I knew of him already and I was interested in having him at the event.

Today I was told that they decided not to provide the writer because my attendees aren’t the right audience. Huh? If our tech-savvy, early adopter, IT buying attendees who get 99.9% of their news online isn’t their target audience, who is?

Without asking, I can tell what happened. The marketing department got involved at some point, took a look at the show and decided to take a wait and see approach. My experience is that when a potential participant says, “you don’t have the right audience” it is code for “you are a new show and we’re not sure if it will be worth it and if you fail we don’t want our name associated with it.”

A valid point - I understand. But when I do have a successful event, and that speaker or company comes calling for show 2 or 3, it’s going to be hard not to say “I told you so”.