Today was the last session day for human + tech. I’m actually really glad I went to this because it showed me a different side of tech entirely. Human + tech is more artsy and optimistic and there were a lot about somatics and cognitive load and empathy and connection and what can we do to support each other. Fr like, this is absolutely right up my alley.

Last night I went to a different event and conversations were interesting and funny. One of the guys I showed my research to had been in the industry for a while and he found me again later and asked me how my research was going. He was telling me about some of the things he saw in previous cycles and what it was like in the 90s and I asked him if I could take notes so that I can look into some of the things he was talking about and see how it applies to the current AI hype cycle.

I measure my progress by previous progress. Like beating your high score. At AI INFRA I got 24 people to do my survey so I was hoping to at least match that. I was waffling between approaching people at the end and ended up with 23. I could have done more probably but I’m also not trying to turn it into a volume machine because then it dilutes the conversations I have with people and that’s as important as their actual votes.

Anyway I figured if I could get 25 people the next day then I’d at least have a nice average of 24 people a day for two days.

HERE’S THE STORY ABOUT HOW I SAID FUCK IT TO MY DATA, MY SECOND LOVE NEXT TO MY KID.

I had some work to do in the morning so I got to the conference around noon. It was ultra sparse for some reason but last days of conference is like that a lot. I get it, it was my third day of this and I was wiped bc I got home at midnight the night before.

One of my friends sent me this thing on cognitive load and AI but it was at 8:30 AM which is basically illegal so I slept in to a nice normal people wake up time instead and had breakfast. I only really slept another hour but I could tell I needed it because right before I fell asleep my distractions were clustering hard so I cancelled.

Anyway, this was a real conference conference so they didn’t have a ton of booths like RSA or BSides or Startup Grind. At AI INFRA they had like 6 booths so I got to go through them ultra fast and everyone there knew all their shit. That meant that I got to actually go to some of the talks (yay!) instead of running through 10-20 startups all day. This was similar but things were spread out all over the city which high key sucked because what if you wanted to go to back to back sessions run by different groups, now you have to walk 20-30 min to somewhere, so it felt like half conference, half scavenger hunt.

But also, when you do that you lose all these opportunities to meet people and have all these fun conversations. Like I met so many cool people at this event and I remember this one guy had this amazing net colorful net dress and I wanted to say something but someone was talking to them and then I was like oh well I’ll say something tomorrow and never saw him again. OMG and then I met this other cool lady and we made lunch plans and she went to check to see if we added each other and I said, yeah we totally did! and dipped because I had to get back to where I was volunteering then I was like nooooooo when I figured it out. Luckily she passed by me when I was at the side of one of those talks and she was like, “I was waiting for your request!” and I was pretty much like “Yay!” T_T

OK ANYWAY

My friend and I go to this event because it’s cyber related and it’s kind of far but I don’t care because I like walking but it was also windy which I like a lot less. We almost missed it because it was just a door with some stairs but anyway at the top was the event yay!

So when I was reviewing booths the day before I asked this guy at a table “What’s this about?” and all he said was, “This is for a private event.” He didn’t elaborate, didn’t have a sign, didn’t have any docs, but did have a pile of [REDACTED] with a QR code on it, and didn’t seem to care to engage with me so I left. I would have forgotten about it entirely and then here he was scanning my luma code since this private event turned out to be some shit I had signed up for.

They had water and soda and some cushy couches and a bunch of chairs in the middle of the room. My friend ended up in some fancy chair and I sank into the couch next to him and was immediately reminded of the time I sank in front of that crazy cloud chair in front of that hot VP.

They started 30 min late but whatever, that’s fine, things start late all the time. First they had us all sit on these tall ass chairs so my feet didn’t touch the ground. I’m short and when I said out loud “AW MAN WTH IS THIS” and swung my feet around, the person next to me pointed to her left and the guy in that seat couldn’t touch the floor either.

We watched a video, then did a quiz with a 30 second timer which sucks when your average answer time is 3 seconds (I know this because it told me my answer time). Then there was a preso and I was like OH THIS IS A PITCH so I’m like ok, a few more minutes and then I’ll be out of here.

INCORRECT.

AFTER ANOTHER HOUR WE WERE STILL THERE SITTING IN THESE HARD CHAIRS.
IT WAS NOT A PITCH.
IT WAS A REDUNDANT LECTURE ON [REDACTED].
THERE WAS NO PRODUCT.

PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS.

Look, I spend MOST DAYS evaluating companies to some degree, like a website, or a pitch, or a booth, or their messaging. Spam sucks, but I have to read it because I am evaluating it. So keep in mind that I’m pretty much in evaluation mode any time I encounter anything customer facing.

They were also VERY NICE and that made the hostage situation even worse but they didn’t understand the cognitive load of the people in front of them, or how it must feel to be trapped sitting for an hour listening the same message over and over again just in different ways with no solution.

I GET IT IT’S [REDACTED]. THIS ENTIRE THING COULD HAVE BEEN AN EMAIL. ALSO WHAT, YOU ARE OPENING FEAR LOOPS WITH NO RESOLUTION? WITH NO FOOD AND IT’S 8 PM AND THERE’S STILL ANOTHER EXERCISE IN A BREAKOUT ROOM? OH MY GOD.

I went through the following:

1. Get to the point
2. What’s the solution?
3. Who are they talking to?
4. Get to the point!!!

Rinse and repeat with increasing irritation.

But I’m not the only one who felt like this.

The CISO and VP next to me in the middle of the lecture just straight got up and dipped. I tried to hide my cell while I was texting my friend even if he was right next to me and then eventually was just like fuck it, I just can’t pretend anymore so we were just openly texting each other the entire time which was mostly a text version of thought loop.

The investor I wanted to talk to about hype cycles dipped I don’t even know how long before. While everyone was shuffling off to the breakout room my friend and I took that opportunity to cut and run and I saw two people talking near the exit and then as I was shouting WTF WAS THAT down the staircase we saw another person pop out behind us.

I had to pee but I was like, it’s cool, I’ll take my chances on the street before going back in there. I asked a security guard if I could use the bathroom in his building and he said no but there was one at this restaurant across the street.

I was hangry for sure so I ordered this veggie plate which ended up being effing amazing. I asked for the bathroom, and also a million dollars, which he did not have but still pointed me to the bathroom. When I got in there the light switch was sticky and then flickering like crazy but it’s ok because after 30 seconds it went out completely. I half expected to see Jigsaw in between flashes and somehow thought, yeahhh… this seems right for today.

All the way to BART Phil and I were talking about how pissed we were that we went to that and they had a photographer and videographer, like is this just for optics? OPTICS WITH NO SUBSTANCE REALLY PISSES ME OFF BECAUSE IT’S A WASTE OF TIME. When we were stuck in those chairs I had been debating on if I should stay so I could get more data but I COULD NOT DUDE, NO FUCK THAT, I NEED OUT OF HERE. FUCK THE DATA SAVE YOURSELF.

This is the last day of a multi day conference. People are tired. We walked far to get there. It’s one thing if they had told me upfront that this is the equivalent of a timeshare presentation but with no show tickets, just water, soda, one commemorative cookie, and a lifetime of spam, then I wouldn’t feel like I somehow fell into a weird version of an almost bait and switch. Like I don’t want to be tricked into watching your presentation dude. You know who I want to drop fat stacks on? Right, the company that tricked me into this lecture that felt pointless and redundant with no food.

When I got home I sent Phil a screenshot of the event since I felt completely misled and that we hadn’t even gotten to the discussion part, which presumably was after the breakout room. I thought maybe I missed something but at least six of us left by the time the breakout room rolled around. It would be one thing if it was just me but it was definitely not.

Everything has a trade off.

And maybe why I was so super mad.

If I am here, then I am not somewhere else, like having dinner with my kid, or taking a nap, or playing ukulele, or literally anything else. I haven’t had dinner with my kid for the last two nights because of conference week. Yesterday his dad texted me that he said, “Where’s Mama?” so at least tonight I dipped early enough to get back in time to do bedtime. Thanks I guess?

Here’s the thing that also sucks.

They weren’t malicious, they were nice. They probably think this is the way to go or got some advice from someone that doesn’t understand cybersecurity buyers, or maybe I’m not their customer, but then who is their customer? It wasn’t any of us that left early.

But I can’t buy off vibes, and these are serious problems that need clean, clear, and concise answers.

If you can’t understand that wasting hours of a buyers time is NOT A GOOD MARKETING STRATEGY then you don’t understand your customer and if you don’t understand your customer then you will have a much harder time selling.

At least I’ll get a case study out of it.

Times I got mad af: ALL OF THEM
Times I should have been having dinner with my kid instead of inside the longest year of the evening: All of them
Times I regretted sacrificing an entire night’s worth of data: 0
Hours spent at said event: 2
SAW bathrooms survived: 1