200 tech companies coming to San Diego

The AeA Classic (Financial Investor Conference) is coming to San Diego this year. AeA has held this event annually for over 30 years! Most of the recognizable tech companies have made their way through the Classic!! It is for public tech companies over 100M in market cap. Around 700-800 investors typically attend this event. Most of the San Diego public companies typically attend. Amazing how many Tech CEO's/CFO's are in one city at the same time probably rivals some of the big trade conferences for senior attendance. My national folks host this so not much for me to do. I try and make sure the local companies that are attending are happy with thier participation.

Investor Relations - My Take
I have always felt that Investor Relations is much more sales/Marketing than many folks are willing to admit. When I was running the Potomac Council for AeA years ago, there was one year that 24 new companies were attending the Classic, late 90's when IPO's were as easy to come by as new Starbucks. A few of the companies were looking to standout, after some brainstorming, they decided to 'rent' food carts at the AeA Classic to promote thier companies, so one company had a 'Ben & Jerry' ice cream cart and the other had a Ms. Fields Cookie Cart, these two companies had higher attendance at thier individual presentations - and this resulted in more instituitional investors and higher stock price!!!!

Most Investor Relations appear to be reactive rather than proactive - I wonder what would happen if a very aggressive IR function was enabled at some of these companies, marketing pieces, telemarketing, all professional - just a more marketing spin to perhaps the number one job of most companies 'increasing shareholder value'

I also was taught (Doug Poretz, who should still have an IR firm in Northern Virginia!) that companies need to tell a story and that story will have an arc it is not always positive but you need to get investors hooked into the 'story' of the company and than listen to your narrative and also believe there will be a happy ending.

More later.....