[galleyfox]

Guys, as the child of professional convention salespeople.

Conventions aren’t going anywhere until technology figures out a way to allow entertaining *chance* encounters with other rising professionals in the industry. Business managers want to know if the people they’re dealing with are fun, boring, hyper, slow, deliberate, impulsive, want to switch jobs, looking for a promotion, etc. Most of the real industry news and business happens at the dinner and drinks meet-ups after the convention.

Zoom is fine for now since nobody’s really hiring or taking on new people or trying out new products. But it’s only really good for companies where everybody has worked together for some time and is familiar with the tasks.

Otherwise it’s like internet dating where you’re web stalking to find random person’s information and cold calling them like a credit collector and spamming their e-mail.