Lunch or Networking? – Oracle Lunch 2.0

Follow

I attended my first Lunch 2.0 at the Oracle campuses today. Lunch 2.0 is an event that is starting to spread not only through the Bay Area but also overseas (Jeremiah Owyang of Web Strategist brought it to Hong Kong recently). 

 The event had excellent food and presentations about Oracle’s upcoming Web 2.0 tech for enterprises. This leads me to think about the pros or cons of holding such an event.

Pros:

1.  Great way to discuss your products and services over a free lunch
2. Can leverage the event to look for new employees
3.  Position your company as forward thinking by hosting a networking event
4.  Network for prospective business by having employees in attendance

Cons:

1.  If people are just attending for a free lunch, is this the right audience? Ironically, one of the speakers even pointed out the issue of a “free lunch” versus interest in the products
2.  There seemed to be an equal amount of Oracle employees as attendees
3.  The event was centered around the product reviews, so not much “networking” by the time I left
4.  There was a iPhone promotion to get contact information, but I don’t know if I would have done it based on questions you should ask before doing a promo/sweepstakes.

Technorati Tags: event marketing Lunch 2.0  marketing  networking  pr  public relations