Want to meet me at CTIA? Hire me for an hour

I’ve got about 100 interview requests already for CTIA. Perhaps unusually, every single interview request is relevant — or I can see an angle that I think will be interesting — to the SMS Text News audience.

The thing is: I am going to CTIA not to sit and do interviews with people. I’m going, thanks to the press credentials extended by the organisers, to check out the keynotes (It’s going to be interesting to see what Mr Branson has to say about Virgin Mobile — I wonder if his speech will be entirely written by a PR chappy or if he’ll speak from the heart!), to browse the stands and see what catches my eye and to meet with one or two people.

I posted a note saying I was going along the other day and asked if anyone would like to meet. The interview requests have poured in, big time. These aren’t ‘hi, I’d like to say hi at the event’ requests (I’ve got quite a lot of those arranged already) — they’re actually full bodied ‘please do an one-hour interview’ requests.

I’d like to say yes to every single one — it’s just not feasible. There isn’t enough time in the days. Ergo I’ve decided to make it a business decision for those companies who’ve contacted me and who plan to do so in the weeks running up to the event. If you’d like to meet me at CTIA with a view to getting covered on SMS Text News, great. Send me an email with your perspective on why we should meet and what you’ve got going on. Provided I think it’s relevant, I’ll agree to meet your senior executive(s) for an hour somewhere quiet and I’ll record and then write up the experience here on the site. The cost? $500.

To be clear: You’re not paying for content, nor are you influencing my editorial perspective. You’re simply paying for my time and helping contribute to keeping the lights on at SMS Text News. In return, I will deliver a guaranteed meeting slot and the following service level: I’ll be able to sit calmly, listen and interact with you for 60 minutes, before taking a good amount of time to sit and author the resulting post(s) about your company. (I’ll make it clear in my editorial that you’ve contributed to cover my time.)

For clarity: Although this is already recorded in the about section, I think it’s worth re-publishing here for those unaware. This site is funded wholly by me. There’s no multi-million dollar publishing company with a huge expense account behind the site. I pay our contributors. Out of my bank account. I pay for the hire and the bar bill for the Unlimited Drinks events we hold. I pay for the travel, the servers, the support costs and so on. Our sponsor (Clickatell, thank you guys!) helps keep the lights on, but this service wouldn’t continue without me as the primary underwriter. So if you’d like to meet at CTIA — or if you’d like to get some time with me on a service-level basis (i.e. guaranteed), drop me a note — ewan@smstextnews.com.