Why pitch to me?

Recently, I started to get requests from technology vendors, PR reps and others asking me to pitch their company, products or ideas through my blog. Initially, I was surprised by these requests considering the narrow focus and few readers of my blog. I am just not sure what to make of such requests considering the limited reach of my blog compared to the blogs of high profile widely read bloggers like Guy Kawasaki or Robert Scoble or even those of well known and influential industry analysts and trade journalists like Mario Apicella or Steve Duplessie.

One person who pitched to me responded to my query about their objective of pitching:

A couple things - first, I'm hoping that you might see this ... as an area to write more about on your blog, given its importance to the .... Also, I wanted to bring your attention that there are issues with ... of these solutions that some vendors out there aren't being completely forthcoming about - for example ....

Again, just thought it might be a topic of interest to explore on your blog. If so, I'm happy to put you in touch with ... if you like.

I welcome your opinion and thoughts on this topic. How do you feel about reading 'pitched' stuff?

BTW, I had interesting conversation on this topic with Jeremiah during my visit to HDS HQ. I will discuss this further in my follow-up posts.

HDS Visit & Lunch 2.0

Last Friday, during my visit to Bay Area, I had the pleasure to meet Jeremiah Owyang. He was very gracious to host me at HDS Executive Briefing Center. I am sure lot of people, including myself, were half-expecting that HDS will even want to talk to me, let alone have me as guest on their premises.

Thank you Jeremiah for the great lunch and equally great discussion (more in later posts). I can only imagine the challenges and efforts required to encourage an organization in a conservative-to-the-fault technology sector to adopt progressive Web 2.0 tools and strategies like blogging, wiki and public forums. Hats off to you. My bad for considering you HDS Blog Manager. How does HDS Web 2.0 Evangelist sound?

After reading the coverage of HDS Lunch 2.0 by you and Robert Scoble, I feel I missed a great event, a chance to interact with fellow bloggers and learn the infrastructure challenges of Web 2.0 companies. Thank you for the Lunch 2.0 T-shirt and Hitachi poster.

Whenever you or any blogger from data storage and IT infrastructure industry are in Seattle, please let me know. I will be happy to meet over lunch or coffee and discuss data storage, blogging and anything in between.

Included from comments:
Thanks, Jeremiah for the link to the Lunch 2.0 video.

Career move to Entrepreneurship - IEEE Webinar

Just received a note from a fellow IIT alum. An interesting and useful Career Accelerator Forum by IEEE and Webinar for those looking to make move to Entrepreneurship or Computer Science.

A Must-Attend Event for Career-Minded, Tech-Science Professionals!

Are you looking for a career move into entrepreneurship or computer science? At the Autumn 2006 Career Accelerator Forum from IEEE Spectrum Online, on October 12th, industry experts will tell you what employers are looking for, how to match your training and skills with the best jobs, and how to leverage work experience and credentials to your advantage. You will also be able to network with career specialists and higher educational institutions in our online forum. To register or learn more, please visit: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/caf