The charge: Are tech conventions guilty of being useless and lame?

Upside.com has the mock trial. “A couple of years ago, when everybody was riding high and Cisco Systems (CSCO) seems to be printing its own money, these conventions were where companies tried to display the ultimate amount of hubris while not saying anything of substance. I mean, come on! Did you ever walk away from listening to a Lucent Technologies’ (LU) engineer and think, ‘Wow! Hearing about that switch got me so excited!’ ”