In old movie musicals from the 1940’s there was typically a turning point where someone in the cast decides it’s a great idea to “Put on a Show!”. Everyone would band together to make something spectacular happen and everyone would go home happy.
It feels very much that way around Agora right now. We have a full slate of live events coming up in the next few weeks. Details are on our Events Page http://www.agorainc.com/events/default.aspx
These events coincide with an extremely busy time in the world of Microsoft product launches. Visual Studio Team System 2010 launches April 12, 2010 and Project Server, Sharepoint, Office and others will follow shortly thereafter.
It is an interesting challenge to run live events these days – especially in the tech sector. People are so used to getting their information on an on-demand basis through recorded webinars, on-line demos or through blogs or discussions that they don’t necessarily want to spend the time to go to live events. As I type this blog post there are two of our engineers in the next room doing voice-overs for an online case study that we will post shortly on our website.
So why do we decide to “go live”. Despite being a technology company, we are also great believers in the importance of human interaction. We are extremely interested to see the reaction of people to new technologies – both good and bad. Through a webinar, no matter how much you poll the audience, you are never going to get the sense of things that people think are cool, or useless for that matter. You don’t have a great ability to ask questions that start a conversation about the use of technology specifically in a customer’s business – and these conversations become important for developing a deeper understanding of how technology impacts people and businesses.
So even though “putting on a show” might seem a little old-school in a high tech world, we forge ahead and look forward to having some good conversations with people who are excited about new technologies as we are.