Web 2.0 Expo Meeting Scheduling: Twitpitch Me!

[update: 15 Apr 5pm -- see Web 2.0 Twitpitch Schedule - Updated 15 Apr 5pm ET for updated schedule and available slots.]

I can't believe what a pain in the ass it still is to do something as basic as trying to schedule meetings with startups at a conference. The solution is probably to hire a PR firm to do it, since they seem so incredibly avid in their relentless pursuit in getting meetings for the clients.

Of course, I am aware that many of the PT flacks that are chasing me -- and the companies that they represent -- do not necessarily get up and jump out of bed in order to see what I may have written overnight. I am possibly just another name on the press list.

But in order to make things simple for me, I am hereby posting a schedule of the times that I will make available for meetings with companies at the Web 2.0 Expo, and I am not going to accept email-based proposals to meet, only Twitpitches.

Schedule For Web 2.0 Expo Meetings, originally uploaded by Stowe Boyd.

Here's the rules for Twitpitching:

1. All companies who would like to have a meeting with me, need to send me a Twittered description of the product. Yes, please Twitter it to me at www.twitter.com/stoweboyd. Yes, one tweet, 140 characters less the eleven used for "@stoweboyd ".
2. Optionally, send a supporting twitpitch with one link, and no other text. Could be to anything: website, video, press release, Rick Astley, etc.
3. Then, twitter me one or more suggested times/place to meet at the event, using the times on the calendar, and a location in the conference building I won't have time to visit your nearby hotel or offices.

(In the future, I plan to use my www.twitter.com/twitpitch account for this, but I haven't set it up in a productive way, yet. More to follow on that.)

Alternatively, you can twitter me about trying to meet at one of the many parties. Note: I will be attending the South Park Crawl, and my office is on South Park, so I am open to being grabbed spontaneously at the party and maybe getting a ptich on the fly, but only by companies that have twitpitched me already. Of course, you could twitterpitch me in real time, right at the party, and then walk over. Could work.

Note also, in a twitterized style of business, I am only allotting 30 or 40 minutes for meetings. Let's get down to it people. Cut to the chase. If I fall in love with it, I will be the first to ask for a follow up.

I am not setting myself up as a tin-plated God, but I am getting an ungodly amount of email from PR folks, and it's extremely random: some have attachments, some have big, stupid, old fashioned press releases copied in their entirety. Gah.

I will post all the twitpitches I receive on my blog, here, so that should be an added enducement.

I don't guarantee that I will agree to the tweetup, but I am definitely not meeting with companies that send email, henceforth. I will send an email to all those that have emailed prior to this post, pointing then to this.

Let the twitpitches commence!

Comments

[Marc]

brilliant

[Amy Gahran]

Stowe, what a great idea!

Just a suggestion -- maybe post the available times as a public Google calendar, so people can see what times are left and who got chosen?

- Amy Gahran

[Stowe Boyd]

Amy - I was hoping some vendor would come along and build me a widget I could plugin. Timebridge chattered at me and said I should do it through their service, but they wouldn't do the dogwork, so...

[Carter F Smith]

Twitpitches? That means 140 characters or less to get your attention? Is that possible? So in order to build relationships with some people, we have to take less of their time? That sounds a lot like a digital elevator speech. I guess it worked for Lincoln, but he was pitching the American people :-)

(yes, I spun off of that http://carterfsmith.blogspot.com/2008/04/4score-and-how-would-lincoln-do-on.html
)

Regarding your calendar challenge -- I happened across Jiffle (www.jifflenow.com) while looking for Angels, and they have a really useful (free) interface that allows you to block off time on your calendar (including Outlook and Google) and post available times for others to choose from). It hasn't been something I need at this point, but I've tried it and I expect shortly will be using it a lot.

@carterfsmith