What’s wrong with SIFMA?

The 2011 SIFMA technology event is over, and I find myself this week back on a plane to New York (via Boston). Melanie wrote a great piece on the incredible shrinking show. Here’s the problem. There are two schools of trading – Old and new. Old school remembers the days traders would come down from the desks after the close to peruse the new terminals. The brokerage folks would come to look at workstations and back-office systems and fancy new tools called CRM. New school is black box, quant, HFT, algo trading. SIFMA is run by old school. Technology was just different. Technology buyers were different. You could look at technology. Touch it. Move the mouse (or hit the right function combo for you 3270 folks).

“Here. Let me show you how this works”, said the average salesperson.

There were terminals and laptops on every display. The show organizers seem to think there will be a comeback someday the likes of the blue eye shadow and Chuck Taylors my daughter and her friends are bringing back from the 80s. Sorry folks. There is no comeback.

Howard, I like you, but you guys need some fresh blood organizing this conference. The new technology buyers can’t touch and smell and play with the new trading technology. How do you play with a Spread Networks or an Exegy or a Correlix?

The new buyer needs to learn. Instead of the topical discussions on that stage by all the big vendors, teach. Put me up there with Sybase, Streambase, and Progress and let’s talk about CEP. We’ll discuss the use cases. We’ll talk about challenges. Roadmaps. Take questions from the audience. If Jeff, Mark, or Dr. Bates try selling their products or picking apart their competitors on stage instead of in the booth, trust the moderator to drop the hammer.

Let’s talk about hardware versus software in feed handlers. Let’s discuss fiber options. Colocation and proximity hosting. Storing market data. Algo chassis. Pre-trade risk controls. Messaging middleware. FIX networks and connectivity.

You want to bring back the decision makers? You want them walking the floor? Give them a reason to show up. If a CIO/CTO could spend two days a year keeping up with the latest technology, I would advise every one of them to do so. I talk to a lot of them and few are current on the vendor community capabilities. The little upstarts are never going to get an audience with that executive if they cold call in. Put them on a stage talking about emerging technology where the CIO feels safe and un-accosted in the audience and he or she may learn enough to want to wander over to the booth.

Build the show around the new buyer. The path you’re on, I wouldn’t advise a single client to spend their marketing dollars exhibiting. Throw in a panel slot on their relevant technology with their booth and we’re talking a different game. When I started going to SIFMA technology events you had a better acronym and were the show vendors thought they had to be at so people knew they were a player. Now? Not so much. Right SunGard? Broadridge? Thomson Reuters?

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