"The Incredibles" Take on Asia Tech Media

Last week, the good people at MediaConnect organised the ITJourno Asia Forum held at Nirwana Gardens Resort in Bintan Island, Indonesia.



In journalistic parlance some people in the biz would term the trip a "junket".

jun·ket noun
1. A dessert made from flavored milk and rennet.
2. A party, banquet, or outing.
3. A trip or tour, especially:
-One taken by an official at public expense.
-One taken by a person who is the guest of a business or agency seeking favour or patronage.

Most "junkets" are single-vendor-sponsored and a great opportunity to meet the main players in a company in less formal settings.

Very often this involves No 2 definition above, but also some serious sit-down time in which the company pounds you with their spiel on their latest product, service or long term goals to justify the "expense" in No 3 definition. Sometimes, the places they take you might even provide No 1 definition.

But mostly, for the journos, it is about just networking and 'earning' a holiday after paying your dues writing on tech for so long. Whether you do file a story or not is up to you. Most editors, however, will grate on you if you do NOT produce something.

That said, the Bintan trip was intense. It was a multi-vendor-sponsored event which means every vendor wanted his/her time to talk to the press. There were five sessions with each session having four or five speakers.

After each session, there were "speed-date" sessions in which we reporters were broken up into four tables. The speakers were then rotated from table to table so they could be grilled individually.

As in speed-dating you may end up with a phone number and an email to follow-up on and who-knows maybe even a lifelong news source. I wonder if Woodward met his Deep Throat this way. Nah.

Those reporters still not satisfied with their "dates" could then organise one-on-ones and draw some more exclusive quotes for the readers of their publications.

Even lunch was time for two vendors to throw some more PowerPoint presentations at us while we waffled down on hotel food.

After the trip I ended up with:

This amount of name-cards:	And this amount of files:
Click to enlarge	Click to enlarge

You get the idea.

We tech journos always end up with loads of info. Almost all of it in geekspeak couched in marketing-hype wrapped up in product-pushing spiel. We have to make sense of it all and then regurgitate it into some kind of easily digestable form.

All said, I like the MediaConnect people who organised the event.

MediaConnect has taken the unforgiving role of trying to be the middle-man between the tech press and the vendors and their "I-don't-have-a-clue-PR agencies".

Everyone knows that PR agencies and Press get along like Shrek and Donkey. In the IT world, the relationship would have taken more than three sequels to resolve.

Luckily, now in MediaConnect we have a Princess Fiona. And you don't have to meet the parents to get their approval.

First up let's get to know the people behind MediaConnect:

Glen	Darlene	Phil
Victoria	Jeremy	Sara

My personal opinion of them can be expressed graphically. Click above photos to see them in their other guises. And click here to see the full team.

I am an easy reporter to please. I like the simple things. Like our name tags.




Note: The sked was on the opposite, so you wouldn't forget what was going on.

I liked the bag which was lot more useful then those plasticky things you get that eventually broke from the weight of all the files, folders and souvenirs we usually get.



And it was easy to handle but – heck - tough to find at the baggage claims at the ferry and airport cos everyone had the same one.

Talking about souvenirs. There's just one gripe I have.


Can anyone tell me why IT vendors so love Fat Ugly Pens (F-UPs) as giveaways?

Click to enlarge

In my experience most of these pens don't work after three days (cue catcall)

What was really useful was the 1. USB drive from D-Link, 2. optical mouse from Agilent...



...and 3. this great looking clock/pen from Macromedia


Most times I never ever keep these things. I try to pass them to the same people walking around with all those vendor T-shirts we get.

I think MediaConnect also deserve all the kudos for pampering us journos by giving us individual rooms, first in Singapore, then in Bintan. Note, however, that some of us, this writer included, don't function too well the next day, when all the partying starts the first night.

Partying, did you say partying?

Yes, people, IT journos can party too. Go here to see how crazy we can get.

Click on "Comment" below to reply to the above.

For now. Goodnight.

Julian

Link: "The Incredibles" trailers