You dance with them that brung ya!

Larry Dignan summarizes commentary on a war or words that has broken out  at Oracle Open World about Marc Benioff’s talk being canceled/postponed/relocated.

Sorry, Marc I will miss your talk. I still love you but I also said no to invites from Juniper, Rimini and several others this week. At your event, Dreamforce I said no to many other vendors who wanted me to steal away. Blame it on my upbringing and my time in Texas where I first heard the expression in the title.

I am finding every industry event has such conflicts and have adopted the policy where the host gets first dibs on my time at the 1-2 days I spend at their event. If there is white space in the agenda I accept invitations to alternatives. I told Marc’s PR I was tentative subject to what Oracle was scheduling – and they scheduled customer/executive meetings for most of the day.

One nice thing I was able to schedule this week: meeting my two nephews who are at the event as Oracle partners – I walked with one from my hotel to Moscone yesterday, and I meeting the other for a coffee later today.  He has warned me it will be short – I am competing with the Sting concert. How appropriate – a sign of the many choices in all these industry events.