So, now I am a marketing guy??

Raymond posts a good (meaning blunt) entry on his session at PDC2005

            Today I got to see Marketing's handiwork again, as they edited my talk description.

Well, I did push to to make the change in the title to include Raymond’s name.

This is the 2nd time in a month I have been accused of being a marketing guy… I am not, I will have you know I still know how to code… In fact I coded something up just today ;-) . But John, would you have job for me if I ever did forget how to code ;-)

At any rate, I pushed to have two sessions at the PDC include names in the titles: Raymond’s and Anders Hejlsberg. I did this because we decided not to post speaker information yet and I wanted the session preference survey to be as accurate as possible (this survey helps us put sessions in the right sized rooms). My intention was to have the title changed to remove Raymond’s name once the speaker names are posted. BTW – I did not butcher his abstract, that would be a real marketing guy…

My theory is that it maters to attendees who gives a sessions. If John Doe is talking about Five(ish) things every Win32 developer should know (but likely doesn't) you may not go… but if you are one of the many people that follow Raymond’s blog, you know him.. you know he is smart, funny and an excellent communicator… You are likely not to miss it.

Do you agree? Does having the speaker name influence your decision to attend this session? Is anyone going to come just because it is Raymond? Is anyone not going to come for the same reason? I’d love to hear from you!