BTW – kudos to MODA, Craig, Ian, and Peter. Rich is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!!

I was speaking with someone (can’t remember who or when), who suggested that comment cards would be a great way to have folks voice many more opinions on the evening than they may feel comfortable doing in front of 60 other people. Both the demo’rs and the organizers would get to read them, but no-one else (pseudo-anonymous).

Part of the “ticket price” of attending DemoCamp could be a filled-out comment card with at least 1 piece of feedback about each demo, and 1 about the forum.

Perhaps that would give the presenters (and organizers) a lot of extra feedback to help steer the events.

I’m not knocking the ad. It was really quite enjoyable.

This all started (on my end) by me pointing out that Scott A, can’t on the one hand single out MODA for first of all being ‘established’ (though not explicitly by name) and then state that doing a walk through Presentation of their product makes democamp a “sales and marketing platform.” When at the same time not mentioning an actual advertisement that was played at the event. (enjoyable or not) Thats the main thrust of my argument.

In fact by the discussion here, I’m getting the sense people are more open to having sales and marketing pitches at the event not less.

But your point is well taken on the lack of sales and marketing expertise of local companies. However, will we allow a Shopify commercial at the next event? if yours was allowed then why not? Because its not entertaining? who decides? etc.

I agreed with Scott A, but not his example. I think this is a bit of a slippery slope.

cheers

IMHO, the reaction by the audience says it all. They laughed (out loud, repeatedly). They enjoyed it. Several people commented to me personally after the event how much they liked it.

Sure, it was admittedly marketing. But it was fun, something a little different and interesting to pretty much the whole group (developers).

Would I suggest that this become a repeated part of the DemoCamp movement? Nope. But as a 90 second interlude, I’m surprised it turned even one person off.

Those that have travelled for business know that Ottawa is renowned for having a strong tech presence and virtually no good marketers (which is why, frankly, the odds are stacked against Ottawa entrepreneurs). That’s the reputation we have. It strikes me that every entrepreneur that sets foot in DemoCamp should be thinking about marketing with as much ferver as they think about their own technology. Perhaps a little bleed through is not inappropriate afterall.

In the time between CaseCamps, I don’t think its a bad thing for the odd presentation to deviate away from strictly software demos.

I guess we’ll just have to disagree on this one.

In the first place. I wouldn’t have said anything except for Scott A suggesting he didn’t like MODA as they were only doing a sales and marketing pitch. But thats exactly what the Video was. Fun, yes. Entertaining, sure. But still and Ad for Devshop to a room predominantly filled with developers.

Can DemoCamp be more versatile – sure. If Craig wants to show the commercial and explain “the process of how they were made and the reaction he has gotten from them.” Thats deviating into a Sales and Marketing discussion then we’re in CaseCamp territory:

http://casecamp.org/home/show/CaseCampOttawa2

Thats not what DemoCamp is really about.

Craig’s video’s were meant as a short, fun interlude and I didn’t consider them to be part of the official scheduled demos for the night.

That being said, it actually would have been better if Craig had shown the devshop commercials and explained the process of how they were made and the reaction he has gotten from them.

I think its obvious to everyone that the primary purpose of democamp is for demoing software but that doesn’t mean its the only purpose.

The thrust of Scott Annan argument was that we were given a commercial for MODA and that they are ‘established.’ I don’t agree, but in any event we did watch a commercial for Devshop.

There was no discussion about viral marketing by Craig, and DemoCamp isn’t for Youtube commercials its for demos’s of software at different levels of development. A demo of DevShop has its place, but imho not a commercial no matter how fun in spirit.