Just finished the second week of exhibiting at Microsoft TechEd in Barcelona.  This week it was IT Forum which translates into an audience interested in how you actually run and manage an infrastructure based on products from Microsoft and its partners.  Not much to be said about the trade show as such – it was much like last week and we are happy.  The quality of the leads this week is probably a bit higher than those we got last week with the software developers.

But here is another perspective intentionally set up to provoke half the audience at IT Forum – only that they’ll never read this, as they are not interested. The half I’m talking about we may refer to as the scavengers of IT Forum.

It started when I flew back to Barcelona on Monday. The guy behind me was doing the best he could to make clear to all, that the personnel of the largest Scandinavian retailer get messed up and go to IT Forum only because their boss tells them to.  Was this a sign of what was to come? In a way yes, only the rest of the scavengers are probably not as bad as this guy from Coop.  Fortunately he was the first and in the end he still managed to take the price.

But indeed it is an indication of the difference between the two TechEd conferences. The audience of TechEd: Devleopers are software developers with an almost religious relationship to their computer, programming language, communication stack etc. These people go to TechEd because they wouldn’t miss it for anything, and they beg the bosses during the year to get a chance to go to the next TechEd. I like them for their genuine interest and oftentimes curious minds.

As for the audience of IT Forum it may be divided into two groups. One half tries to take what the developers came up with, and actually make it useful to users day in and day out.  These people buy, install, operate, and retire IT systems. They are focused on how to provide a smooth and robust infrastructure of value to their organizations. They may scavenge a bit, but not for a living.

The other half is the real scavengers.  And – inexperienced in a world of IT tradeshows as I am – this group turned out to be a crowd, you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley if carrying as much as a cheap pen with the logo of the local waste management company. Maybe they drink bloody marys like the guy from Coop or maybe they are just ordinary guys, but they share the common background of having no special interest in software and IT. They go to TechEd to rid Microsoft and the other exhibitors of free T-shirts, iPods, Frisbees, pens, flashlights, cookies, strange things with LED’s inside, etc. (But no chocolate fondue for these guys. Ha!) The bags they got when registering the first day were so loaded at the end of the week, that many gratefully picked up the extra bag offered by APC. 

And so I could go on – offended I am, and I know I’ll just have to get used to it.  But I am a developer at heart and I like people who show a genuine interest in what they do for a living.