by Do you receive frequent cold calls from vendors? Offers of lunch at the local steak house? (always a tad off-key for a vegetarian) Just checking in to see if your IT needs are being met calls?
I've had cold callers I've never spoken with muscle our receptionist into forwarding to my desk with the "need to continue a conversation with your IT manager.."
And sometimes the pitch of the voicemail and email raises to "how can we open a dialog with you?"
It is easy to become annoyed with pushy vendors, but the reality is they are trying to reach us because we ARE in a position of recommending or decision-making on IT purchases. I find an IT conference to be an excellent way to engage with unknown vendors as well as hallway-track with my IT peers about vendor merits or otherwise.
It is much easier to find time to talk with a vendor in the Exhibit Hall when I've already allocated a day or more away from the normal flow of projects and pager.
Consider sending as many of your IT vendors as you can think of towards sponsoring Cascadia IT Conference and LOPSA-East. Both of these events are all volunteer run and your voice carries much more weight with your vendors than us cold-calling them.
Keep in mind when you engage them that you are usually being reached by their sales staff, and conference sponsorship tends to come from their Marketing departments. But their sales staff will often be at the conference itself. A bit of follow-through may be needed as your request is handed from Sales to Marketing.
All the basic information is here:
http://casitconf.org/casitconf13/sponsorship-opportunities/
And you and/or vendors can contact casitconf-sponsorship@casitconf.org
for more details including a PDF contract.