During the break I went to the newly opened exhibitor area. It’s packed
with vendors and attendees, and there’s some swag this year! I didn’t see
any swag at last year’s conference, and little the year before that (in 2000
in Monterey, there was so much swag that I was able to bring dozens of
t-shirts back for my colleagues). So the Stonehenge t-shirt and Powell’s
juggling balls may signal that the IT economy is getting well.
It’s interesting that it’s the relatively small businesses offering swag,
not the big ones. I suspect that the big businesses are looking at how the
economy has been recently, while the small ones see that things are already
getting better.
Charles Engelke's Blog 