An invitation does not always mean you’re invited

So last Wednesday I received an invitation to a Seminar and Luncheon on Unified Communications. Since I have spent quite a bit of time over the last two years writing, speaking and implementing Unified Communications solutions (mostly OSC 2007), I thought it would be cool to attend this function and look at greater detail at some alternatives to the Microsoft offering. Well I clicked on the email link and began the arduous task of filling out the information to reserve my seat at the event. If anyone has been through this task, you know this is a 25 to 30-minute ordeal where they want to know just about everything about you professionally. I draw the line at giving a pint of blood for testing, but it was almost that bad. I marked my calendar and I was genuinely looking forward to the event. Two days later, I received an email about the seminar from Cathy Auslander McGovern the Manager of Marketing Campaigns. Here is a portion of the email: “Thank you for your interest and registering for Cypress’ Hosted Unified Communication Seminar in NYC on May 19. Unfortunately, space is very limited and this is an invitation-only event for managing partners, C-level executives and technology partners at law firms, so we cannot confirm your registration at this time” Now I thought that being the “president” of a consulting company that implements UC solutions. And with my background in writing and speaking on UC, let’s not forget that I received an invitation via email. That was enough of a qualification to attend. It was strange to put me through the whole bit only to be officially uninvited to the event. I was so mad that I told them to take me off any lists they have for future events. I get three to five invitations a day to seminars and luncheons and obviously, I cannot spend all my time attending everything. Really, I cannot spend endless hours filling out these forms either. So when I do decide this is something worth my time and I give my time to fill out the information I expect (and I think reasonably so) that I will be going to the event. The whole thing made me think, how many of you out there have had this happen to you as well? These people need to do a little more due diligence up front and not just mass email everyone who ever look at a solution they are having a seminar about, this would do wonders in making sure us busy IT professionals are not WASTING OUR TIME. I am sure you readers as well as I have better ways to spend our time. What are your thoughts, what gets under your skin? Let me know in the meantime I want to thank (sarcastically of course) Cypress for inviting and uninviting me to their seminar.