Interview from Richmond Cruise #1
So here’s the first brief interview from the RichmondEvents cruise. While I admit I’m not much of a journalist and don’t quite know how to interview (though under my belt are interviews with Eliot Spitzer & Paul Reiser - though are stories for another day), I asked a couple of questions to understand the attendees and the quality of the event so here goes…
Interview with Jon Winsett
RH: What’s your company?
JW: NPI
RH: How’d you get involved in the business?
JW: After a career of hi-tech vendor experience and years of seeing the great disparity in the pricing of
products and services, I decided to become an client advocate for IT purchasing. NPI has since grown to become a significant tool for bringing pricing transparency to corporate America — with over 200 clients ranging from Boeing to Hilton to Sears.
RH: What brought you on the Richmond cruise?
JW: It is a great forum to meet and share experiences with high level executives in the Global 2000.
RH: What was the most valuable thing you got out of the cruise?
JW: The networking — with not only prospective clients but industry experts
across business.
RH: Tell us a story from the cruise …
JW: NPI is launching a social networking site called OnTheHoot.com. It is tailored for financial services IT execs who want to discuss IT purchasing with their peers and comes with a price benchmarking component driven by NPI. This most recent cruise allowed me to meet with not only potential members, but I had dinner with a founder from another
social networking site, lunch with a Web 2.0 guru that helped shape our venture, and drinks with a marketing agency who focuses on online community promotion.
If this isn’t the superstar of conferences I don’t know what is.
