Are you going to SMB Nation?

Posted: 11:40 am
July 18, 2007
Events, IT Business, SMB
24 Comments

No.

Of course not. If you’d like to know why, read below…

Everyone seems to be asking if I’m going. After last years sales festival everyone seems to be trying to figure out if Dana and Arlin are really going to change it or if it will be a shame on me moment. Point is, everyone is wondering. Should I go? Do you think it will be better? Think they’ll get it back to what it used to be? Who else is going? Think I should go?

I don’t know, I’m nobody’s daddy (that I know of) but I made a decision on one simple observation that I get because my role involves talking to a lot of partners: nobody I want to network with is going. Pure and simple. I have a lot of peers in this segment, I work with a lot of people that I respect and can learn a lot from and it just seems that none of them are going this year. What their reasons are I don’t know and don’t care, I am not interested in flying accross the country to meet a bunch of people that are just starting their business.

Mind you, there is a handful of very impressive people going.. Matt Mackowicz, Erick Simpson, Karl Palachuk, Arlin Sorensin, Mark Crall, Dana Epp, Susan Bradley, Jeff Middleton.. but (with the exception of Susan who is just insane) they are all going because they are speaking or selling our launching a book or attending an SBS MVP meeting. There is no shame in that, more power to them but I’m looking after myself: Will I get a chance to talk to them when they are surrounded by the riff-raff, can we really talk about the issues businesses on our level face when other people on the table are struggling with the concept of E&O?

So I did my evaluation and based on just those two pieces I decided not to go. I also took into account Jeff’s SMB ITPRO conference, SMBTN and found them head and shoulders over SMB Nation 2006. I also considered the full weeks that I spent at Microsoft WWPC and Microsoft TechEd and the potential CES trip and it just turned out to be a no brainer. There is a lot more to this, and me cancelling the conference schedule I had on my plate, which I intend to cover in a future blog post.