Spam Attack from Info360 and Real Story

January 30, 2012

I am fascinated with the machinations of conference organizers adapting to the iPad era.

I was invited to Info360? The name did not resonate, so I browsed the spam message, a portion of which is included in this blog post.

So what’s an Info360? On the surface, it seems to be mostly about an azure chip (maybe a very pale azure?) consulting firm and a gaggle of jargon. Here’s an example of what’s on tap in June, which the spam assures me is amazing:

Big data and analytics
Cloud infrastructure.
Content management basics, records management, and Web content management (presumably different from “basic” content management and not a subset of content management)
Data capture
Enterprise collaboration
Mobile business
SharePoint
Social business

In short, this is an umbrella conferences covering a multitude of topics. The Info360 program is, I believe, the Association of Image and Information Management’s event.

These “one size fit all” conferences contrast with more focused start up showcase events or focused technical events such as the Lucid Imagination Lucene Revolution program.

More and more umbrella conferences are “pay to play” talks. Programs are often little more than product and marketing pitches.

What should a person do who is seeking information about a specific topic in the laundry list in the spam message sent to me? My suggestion is to look for a specialty conference close to home.

Email marketing, at least for me, spam is a turn off. When the spam uses words like “amazing” and “real”, I tune out. I may be taking steps toward a certain blindness by ignoring spam about conferences, so your mileage may differ. Search is not on the program. That’s probably a plus because search is certainly no buzzword like “big data” or “mobile business”, whatever that means.

Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2012

Comments

One Response to “Spam Attack from Info360 and Real Story”

Ann O'Nymous on January 31st, 2012 10:47 am

“Pay to play”? Nah, Info360 does not deserve that label. On the other hand –

“Payback if I don’t play”? Your blog is a great demo of that approach.

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.