douglasmkelly's posterous

Last week 250 West Michiganians and I attended the AimWest Google Lunch at the Devos Place. I won't get into what a cool venue Devos Place is, or that the Devos-Provided WiFi didn't work for most of the day, or that I took 3/4s of a day off to go. I won't get into the price for AimWest Members being only $10 less than non-members... Ok I guess I just did... I just couldn't believe for the price of the event, that the WiFi wasn't adequate.

Was it cool to go to a great venue to listen to The Almighty Google speak? Oh Yeah! Was it cool that a local organization can pull in a Google Rep? You betcha. I will start with saying, that I knew most everything presented by all 3 speakers I listened to, and if I didn't, I could've Googled It. I also made up a half dozen people's mind on what they were going to attend – solely because they believe I know what I'm doing. I picked events based on packaging and name instead of really asking what the product contained. To all of you that decided to attend the break out sessions based on my going: I am sorry.

I did come away with some minor notes. Google's John Black (I'd so change my name to Jack!) was the Keynote speaker. Google's retail online sales manager didn't have all the techie info I had hoped to glean. John briefly talked about Google's association with Dish Network for TV ads. That was cool to hear. They have set-top boxes helping to manage ad integration. The ad supplier is only charged for when someone actually views an ad – local or national. That was pretty much it. The coolest take away.

Some of the other areas Black touched on were:

• Based on customer feedback they are also working to make it easier to use Google Adwords.
• In 3 years Google's seen a 300% growth in mobile search, with 50 times more search on mobile devices than regular cell phones.
• Google believes more and more computing will be done on the Cloud than on your C: drive. (This is not news)
• Google.org tracks flu trends world wide
• Some of what's next: Consumer Internet, Smart Grid Technology, and Green Energy

You know what? I could have Googled all of that. It was cool to see the Flu graphs and how Google is predicting breakouts around the globe on similar numbers with the CDC. Some of the other numbers were slightly noteable. But John Black didn't come with anything new – seriously new. 25 minutes after his key note finished Google released a statement that they were rolling out Font API and Font Directories. No one in the room knew about that! It could have been the Steve Jobs-esque end to an address. Then on Friday (or Monday, I don't exactly remember), Google released a notice that Google TV was coming to a provider near you. Ok, I get it: Google's a HUGE company and all, but come on! The GR Press was there. One of the local TV news outlets had a camera going. Grand Rapids is number 1 or 2 (depending on the poll) to get Google Fiber. John made a comment about GRGoogleFiber initiative, but that was it. No major announcements. No major un-Google-able points.

I'll back off Google for a minute. The best thing I've enjoyed about AimWest events, even when I could have given the talk my self, has been the Q and A. Even if I know most of what the speaker discusses, the questions fired and the answers given help me with my potential clients. I ended up walking out of the Mobile break out session, when the guy went long, and we never had any question period. For one thing the guy was extremely boring, wasn't used to giving speeches, was visibly unprepared, and spoke above many people's heads. Part of what he talked about was essentially Business 101 – but for iphone apps. I attended the mobile session because I believed it was going to be about new trends, or how Google and iPhone/Android were going to revolutionize the world. I didn't really want to hear about the steps to rolling out an app. I only jotted down a couple things during his session:

• Launch your App with friending to gain stickyness
• Plan for Participation
• Support Social Networking and Location
• and expect emergent uses because you may have envisioned it being used one way, but the marketplace may find another way.

I only noted these because they cemented what I already knew and spoke to Social Media. The guy talked about who you need to have buy in, from Legal to IT. Any department that wants a new site, app, marketing expenditure or corporate direction knows and lives by this. It's called “Red Tape”. I almost walked out to find another session, not caring who I offended or what I missed, because I made the terrible assumption that it would get better – or end soon and the Q&A could begin.

So ok – 1). the food was good. 2).I saw 40-50 people I know. And, 3).I met someone that I've only talked to on Twitter. I set up 2 meetings from this event. Those are good things and if I close any business out of it, will probably change my tune – but even the last breakout was google-able. Pete Brand was a much better speaker than either Mobile Guy or Google Guy. But he only read a list of Google Apps, that anyone can find on Google's App Site. He did give one sentence describing each... (psst, you can also read that from Google Apps), what I really wanted to know was how his company helped organizations save money. How he helped them migrate from Microsoft to the free Google Apps. How much money did his clients save? How easy was it? I only tweeted a couple things from Brand's talk:

• Use forms to easily roll out marketing questionnaires with out needing IT support.
• The other was that I already knew all of this.

There was some Q&A, like “How did you migrate your clients from MS to Google. Brand deferred to the audience. The Grand Public Library rep tried to answer that going Open Office was pretty easy. Does it sound like I'm griping here? It should. For $40 I got to have a Google Search recited on 2 different topics, and some guy review Business classes. I can believe that, in the West Michigan area, there are many knowledgeable individuals. Having the audience answer other's questions isn't really as bad as you might think. I attend a local Social Media Free Lunch where the group founders have asked me to answer some questions. It really shows that there are several topic savvy individuals locally. The difference between a lunch/learn and a conference, however, is that the speaker is supposed to be an expert.

Am I asking too much?

I know that the AimWest Board works really hard to pull these things off. I respect all and know many  board members. I also bet that they don't review presentations pre-event. After this one, I hope they start. If any of you attended the AimWest Google Lunch and took some good things away, please for the love of all things Google, comment. I love Google. I love AimWest. I'd like AW to get better. I think all comments here could be reviewed by the board. Google, on the other hand, is getting too big - in my assumption. They'll not be reading this blog. But if you're from Google, change my mind!