BarCamp Planners: Get a Salesperson / NN issues

For any people considering planning a barcamp in their area, one piece of advice is get a highly successful salesperson on your planning team.

Many of the people involved with planning a barcamp will be tech enthusiasts and geeks. Those people are not always the best salespeople. Having a good salesperson on your planning team will give you an advantage in two aspects of barcamps.

1. If you want to get sponsors for your barcamp, the salesperson will likely be much more effective at getting sponsors than will your average geek. Someone successful in sales knows how to present the benefits of a product (or event) to the potential sponsor in a way that will help the sponsor make the decision to support your barcamp. Sales people also understand the meaning of a deadline and working under last minute pressure to get the desired 'sales quota', so they will work effectively within the short timeframe of most barcamps.

2. A successful salesperson will help the barcamp planners produce effective marketing and PR materials to both attract the target audience and appeal to the media, if your barcamp wants PR in established media (newspapers, periodicals, tv, radio, etc).

Having a passionate and successful salesperson be responsible for signing up sponsors and effectively handling the PR/marketing aspects of the barcamp will make it easier for the geek planners to connect with other geeks to get them to come to the event and to plan their own sessions for the event.

BarCampMilwaukee doesn't have any sales people involved with the core planning team (as far as I know), which likely caused the group more challenges than necessary. But the great thing about barcamps is, BarCampMilwaukee will happen regardless of how good the planning team is at sales and marketing. And it will be fun for the people participating in the event.

To make your barcamp run as smoothly as possible, include a successful salesperson on your planning team. You'll wonder how you could have done it without them!

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Below is the final list of issues for the Monday, 11 September 2006, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 6:50 pm weekly gathering at Atlanta Bread Company (West) by the Fox River Mall, 650 North Casaloma Drive, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.

1. Doing it for free http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/09/doing_it_for_fr.html
2. User Account Control: yes, you can turn it off http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060910-7703.html
3. Suspicions and Spies in Silicon Valley http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14736379/site/newsweek/
4. Microsoft Max and You http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2006/09/microsoft_max_a.html
5. Amazon Unbox better left off your box http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060910-7704.html
6. How Will Apple’s Marketing Maestro Marry the Computer and the Home TV? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/11/technology/11apple.html
7. Judge: ADA lawsuit against Target can proceed http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060910-7705.html
8. Proposed Wipo Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasts http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/broadcasting_treaty/podcasting.php
9. IDE to NDS Connection http://www.natrium42.com/blog/?p=39
10. When Information Becomes T.M.I. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/fashion/10FACE.html
11. Yahoo adds conference calls to message service http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060911/tc_afp/afplifestyleusinternetcompanyyahoo
12. AT&T, Verizon Hit Streets To Promote DSL Service http://news.yahoo.com/s/adweek/20060908/ad_bpiaw/attverizonhitstreetstopromotedslservice
13. Philadelphia opens high-tech school of the future http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060907/tc_nm/life_school_dc
14. Penguin revives the serial novel for online buzz http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060907/en_nm/media_penguin_serial_dc
15. Gore's "Truth" DVD boasts earth-friendly package http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060907/tc_nm/gore_dc
16. Plantronics' Wireless Winner http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20060908/bs_bw/tc20060908004830
17. Microsoft Seeks To Patent Verbs http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20060907/tc_cmp/192503744
18. Wired News lets users write wiki article http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060906/ap_on_hi_te/tech_wired_wiki
19. The end of VC? http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20060904/tc_infoworld/81385
20. Mozilla Updates Firefox 2.0 Beta http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20060901/tc_pcworld/127009
21. Supreme Court To Hear Arguments On Software Patents And Open Source http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20060905/tc_cmp/192501175
22. Sony scales back PlayStation 3 launch plans http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060906-7672.html
23. Dispute over GPL could be headed to court http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060906-7671.html
24. Microsoft hefts a heavy mithril BrowserShield http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060905-7668.html
25. Google releases open-source OCR tool with HP special sauce http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060905-7664.html
26. NVIDIA introduces GeForce 7900 GS http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060906-7674.html
27. Discussion: Webified Desktop Apps http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/discussion_webified_apps.php
28. Apple Cube reborn http://www.unwiredview.com/2006/09/07/apple-cube-ii-computer/
29. Google News Archive Search http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-09-06-n18.html
30. Really Free Software http://www.forbes.com/technology/2006/09/05/linux-ubuntu-opensource_cz_mr_0906shuttleworth.html
31. Fingerprinting WiFi could secure MAC addresses http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060905-7669.html
32. BlackBerry Pearl 8100 http://www.techworld.com/mobility/reviews/index.cfm?reviewid=444&pagtype=samechan
33. Mac and Linux Versions of AbbeyNet Firefox VoIP Plug-ins http://www.oreillynet.com/etel/blog/2006/09/mac_and_linux_versions_of_abbe.html
34. Why windows takes so long to start up http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2006/09/why-windows-takes-so-long-to-start-up.html

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