Who is booking to see exhibitors? Is it really necessary?

[toffee_paul]

As subject really.

 

A couple of colleagues and I are attending for the first time and thought we'd just meander through and stop at what takes our fancy. Having to pre-book time slots for Connect@BETT is a right faff. What happens if we turn up and haven't booked time slots?

[Brax]

Honestly no idea. I've also just booked in slots myself as i'm also going first time. What's frustrating is the tech labs events clash with the time slots.

[rogerdnixon]

I totally ignore the whole booking thing and just go to the stands I want to look at and people just talk to you.

[Olliedawg]

I'm not booking anything. Like you say just having a wander around, stopping at stands which take interest

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Connect is awful. Think speed dating with suppliers on a prearranged basis.

It was awful last year but optional. This year every supplier has to pay for it. Though most, like us, don't intend to actually use it.

 

Come to the stand and see us (NH22). We'll have freebies and fun stuff plus a cracing competiton.

 

Don't encourage the Connect thing, then hopefully they'll not bother next year!

[pete]

I treat BETT as somewhere to visit so I know that X exists and grab a business card with their website on. Maybe catch up with a couple of suppliers we already have relationships with.

 

Extended meetings are not an effective use of my available time (given it's a 6-8 hr round trip).

[Brax]

Is anyone doing/attending a table talk?

[VeryPC_Colin_M]

what @ICTDirect_Dave said, it's absolute tosh and an unnecessary burden of additional admin for suppliers, and will no doubt irk attendees whose inboxes will be full of invites and reminders..

 

Saying that.. I've essentially used it to fire out invites to come to the stand rather than book a time slot. There's very little chance of anyone being able to honour a time slot as traffic to stands ebbs and flows and you never know how long a conversation may last anyway.

[paulkerton]

I've booked a few on-stand meetings but only with those I want to have a longer form discussion with. TableTalks had no interest for me, and the Tech User Labs felt limited as to choice, and none of it personally relevant.

I'll take to browsing mostly.

Edited January 17, 2024 by paulkerton

[ITGuyNW]

I've decided not to go to BETT this year. Being based on Fylde coast, its a bit of a trek and stuff like connect puts me off.

[paulkerton]

I've decided not to go to BETT this year. Being based on Fylde coast, its a bit of a trek and stuff like connect puts me off.

 

The two things I'm always feeding back to them are "Wrong time of year" and "Wrong location"

The location is slightly easier now we have the Elizabeth Line running finally - but moving it back to January from March isn't great for me. I know why, budgets in schools wise - but it was so much nicer in March, finishing just as the sun was setting... Lush.

[MartinT]

I ignore the constant and highly irritating requests to book meetings and stand visits.

 

I've been going to BETT for years and there is no problem at all in just visiting the stands in normal exhibition mode.

[JSmithBHS]

I'll just be visiting stands, I'd rather not be racing around trying to get to appointments then getting dozens of "we didn't see you at Bett!" emails when I don't manage to get to them.

[Roberto]

Not that Bett is my thing these days but perhaps Vendors should be booking to see you at your conveniance instead of the other way around. They're the ones who want to make the sale right? From your perspective it doesn't really matter if you're buying your Lenovo laptops from Crazy Vaclav's place of Laptops or Mumbly Joe Enterprises if they're both Lenovo Platinum partners or whatever...

 

They could even book you through whatever calendar system you already have with whatever email system you use by sending an invite to your mailbox then all your appointments will be in one place. You could even manually add bits for lunch or meeting up with friends throughout the day. Talk about conveniant.

Edited January 19, 2024 by Roberto

[Brax]

First time at Bett today and yes the whole connect at BETT thing did seem quite pointless. They just scanned your QR anyway and didn't expect you at a certain time. I also got carried away with some great conversations with companies I wanted to speak to which meant that I was then "late" or couldn't make it to some companies I booked a slot with. Apart from this and the fact it was very hard to speak to someone at Microsoft I had an amazing time. Shame I can't go for all three days!

[MartinT]

I found the whole BETT thing very tiring: two trains and car parking with a 2-hour journey time each way.

 

I was happy with the stands (mostly suppliers) I wanted to see, didn't mess around with Connect at all and met up with a colleague.

Most AI stuff was cobblers but I did like Smoothwall's forthcoming AI inspection of photos for inappropriateness in searches.

 

It was time to shake hands with people I won't see again as I am retiring in August.

 

I won't really miss BETT.

[DrCheese]

I found the whole BETT thing very tiring: two trains and car parking with a 2-hour journey time each way.

 

I was happy with the stands (mostly suppliers) I wanted to see, didn't mess around with Connect at all and met up with a colleague.

Most AI stuff was cobblers but I did like Smoothwall's forthcoming AI inspection of photos for inappropriateness in searches.

 

It was time to shake hands with people I won't see again as I am retiring in August.

 

I won't really miss BETT.

 

Yeah, I didn't attend this year - The last one being in March makes it only feel like it was 5 minutes ago. I don't feel enough changes each year to warrant going every year & recently I've found meeting up with others who do the same role in other schools much more useful.

 

Yes, AI is this year's "big thing" - I do chuckle at those who were pushing "Blockchain" and then "Metaverse" in previous BETTs suddenly becoming AI engineers overnight - I desperately try not to become cynical as I get older, but I'm not a fan of the rise of "edutech" influencers who see BETT as the holy grail & spend a lot of time preening/spamming buzzwords on Twitter/Linkedin about it. Yuck.

[MartinT]

It seemed to me that anything containing a little programming intelligence had the 'AI' badge slapped on it in a bit of opportunistic bandwagoning.

[DrCheese]

It seemed to me that anything containing a little programming intelligence had the 'AI' badge slapped on it in a bit of opportunistic bandwagoning.

 

Yarp exactly like "Blockchain", "Metaverse" & "Cloud" in years previously. Even if the products have virtually nothing of the kind.

[TechMonkey]

It seemed to me that anything containing a little programming intelligence had the 'AI' badge slapped on it in a bit of opportunistic bandwagoning.

 

Going OT a bit but I was just thinking about this. What questions should we be asking to find the real AI (I know, non of it is real AI but you know what I mean!) products and the "I used an IF statement" products? Should we be asking about what Machine Learning models they used, or ask them where AI is providing value?

 

We have a member of staff that is going loopy over AI, wants to buy a system that will support our pupils with their learning through AI, and as far as I can tell it is just a conditional processor, you pass a test you get sent to the next one passed on the score, with a over inflated price tag.

[MartinT]

What questions should we be asking to find the real AI

 

I may be wrong but any use of Large Language Models or the like either needs a connection to an AI cloud resource or includes a custom AI hardware chip.

[Dos_Box]

It seemed to me that anything containing a little programming intelligence had the 'AI' badge slapped on it in a bit of opportunistic bandwagoning.

 

I had a chat with more than a few sponsors and exhibitors there, and all were rolling their eyes whenever thay saw 'AI' included in the promotion of even the most trivial of products.

I suppose it's easier to type than 'machine learning'.

Sadly I was only at the show for a day really, but did notice that the stands were almost all smaller and I didn't see the talks that many stands have areas set aside for taking place.

Perhaps they had all moved to the break-out sessions.

It was very nice to see so many of you in the real again when you came to visit the stand though, and my introduction to vegan pizza was...well, 'um'.

[paulkerton]

Yarp exactly like "Blockchain", "Metaverse" & "Cloud" in years previously. Even if the products have virtually nothing of the kind.

 

Blockchain, yes. I'll give you that... and those that jumped on it are definitely jumping on AI. It's definitely a buzzword with a hazy end product (thanks to OpenAI bolting before the product was mature)

 

But AI is definitely a real thing and it isn't going anywhere. Buzzword that it might be.

 

Just like the cloud is (never a buzzword - just a matter of fact, it's here and its ubiquitous)

Also, Meta actually turned up for the first time, with Quest 3 headsets and practical demos. It wasn't just ClassVR or a company that built it's entire product on Google Cardboard with fingers crossed and a hope.

[PotNoodleTech]

Don't encourage the Connect thing, then hopefully they'll not bother next year!

 

Hmm. You and every other supplier is paying for it even though you don't use it?

 

They'll include it next year for sure!

 

:-/

[Brax]

Hmm. You and every other supplier is paying for it even though you don't use it?

 

They'll include it next year for sure!

 

:-/

Funny, in their BETT celebration email they celebrated the table talk and tech labs (which were very good tbf) and not Connect @ BETT Edited January 31, 2024 by Brax