The Good, The Bad and The Very Bad of Red Herring
While I can't speak much about the pinnacle of Red Herring power, I'm almost certain it's not what it use to be. I attended the Red Herring Monterey conference last week because we were chosen to speak on a panel about Search Marketing 2.0. The panel addressed concerns about businesses marketing themselves on the web and those businesses missing out, simply because they lack a website. (You can read more about the subject discussion here.)
While it's always a pleasure meeting executives from a broad range of companies, spanning bio-tech to media - the true joy of this conference was chuckling at Red Herring's CEO and Publisher, Alex Vieux. Not only did he give one of the cheesiest, cliched speeches I've heard in a long time, I also question if he's got a hole in his marble sack.
Vieux made the rounds throughout the conference, toasting everyone several times personally, patting everyone on their backs, and shaking hands, as if everyone was his best friend. The worst part was when he did this DURING keynote speeches, walking in front of the podium, in front of people, walking back and forth smiling as if you were sitting there naked.
You know it's bad, when seemingly professional professionals stare at each other in mock glazes as if to say, 'what the heck is he doing?!?!' Don't get me wrong, I'm not a hater, but after reading about all of Red Herring's possible troubles, I can put together a very biased assumption of what went wrong. It's a shame too, because Red Herring has some of the classiest employees I've met.
On another note, my glass of wine at dinner never hit the bottom - so with that said, the conference was a success!!!
Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations
Labels: Alex Vieux, Merchant Circle, MerchantCircle, Red Herring
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5/07/2007 02:56:00 PM
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