What the hell IBM? No pictures of sessions allowed?

Okay, all damn week long I’ve been taking pictures at sessions, not as much as in year’s past, but still a quite substantial amount. People like Tom Duff and Bruce Elgort even requested my presence to photograph their session. I’ve seen HUNDREDS of cameras around. So what just happened?

Well, there was a particular reason for me to go back to the session that Paul Mooney and Bill Buchan were giving on Worst Practices, and while taking pictures one of the room monitors came up to me:

Room Monitor: You’re not allowed to take pictures.
Me: What? I’ve taken a pictures all week long, at EVERY Lotusphere
RM: Well I’m sorry, but you can’t take any.
Me: So look at this audience, are you going to go around to every person with a camera and tell them they can’t take pictures?
RM: Yes I would sir…

Okay, at this moment, I could see 7 people with cameras. Two were recording video, and several others were taking pictures. I could have chucked my coffee cup and hit all of these people, but he didn’t say a damn thing to them. Why? Because I was holding a professional camera with a big lens and a large flash.

It was bullshit plain and simple, and quite frankly this is an absolutely STUPID rule, and not applied equally. Anyone from IBM care to comment?

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