I ‘ve been reading a review of this week ‘s CloudExpo that took place in New York City. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to attend this event and can ‘t report on the quality of this conference, but one item took my attention – the author complains about the poor quality of wi-fi connectivity.

Having poor wi-fi at conference is a fact of life regardless of how big or small the event is. If you never organized a conference or a seminar, you may not be aware of the super expensive cost of offering Wi-Fi for all participants. Hotels or conference centers can easily charge $1000 a day for wi-fi for a 30-people event. I don ‘t know how much Javits Center charged for this poor wi-fi, but I ‘m pretty sure it was at least $20,000.

But my main message is not to save a little bit of doe to poor event organizers. I ‘m in general against having wi-fi at any conference.

Let me ask you a simple question, “What an attendee needs wi-fi for? ” I hear you, to check emails. Is it so? If you are a big shot (a team lead or even a c-Level manager) you ‘re definitely carrying. Blackberry, iPhone, or even Droid. So you are covered in that department. If you are not carrying, the business can survive without you being constantly on a leash.

What I really see on each and every conference (I usually attend/run about a dozen events a year) that attendees are casually browsing the Internet, twitting, facebooking, blogging while attending technical presentations. I haven ‘t spotted anyone yet watching a porno movie while attending an IT session, but I ‘m sure it ‘s coming too. Is this why you or your employer paid for the ticket? I don ‘t think so.

To make the story short, I ‘d like all meeting organizers to gather somewhere for a week (Miami, Vegas, Hawaii) and create a new movement (under my leadership): “Say No to conference Wi-Fi “.

To demonstrate my leadership and put the money where my mouth is, I ‘m announcing that there will be no wi-fi at my upcoming seminar on Modularization of Enterprise Flex Applications on May 17 in New York City. Instead, I ‘ll offer a discount code that will save you one hundred of American dollars. Just enter the code saynotowifi at the registration page.