I'm amazingly unconcerned at this trend. The value of sessions at centralized physical conferences, aside from contacts / networking, comes from scarcity of information. As should be blindingly obvious to everybody these days, the web, the network itself, is constantly democratizing access to information. Scarcity rents for information itself, which can be disseminated at zero marginal cost, are almost immoral. The economic facts are ineluctable; pro speakers aren't the only people with a dodgy business model.

As a professional programmer, I'd much rather hear about a technology from one of the people who helped build it, than from a professional explicator. This really came home to me during the evolution of .NET 2.0, when I was working on a project that targeted it while it was a moving target, in CTPs.

At the other end of the scale, hand-holding the unenthusiastic and walking them past the threshold of minimal productivity with a new technology has value, but more in a training role, or as a component of product marketing. In this case, the pros involved would be more like professional actors, playing a role written for them by someone else.

I've simply endured far too many presentations by people with only surface familiarity with the technology at hand, who visibly baulk at intermediate questions and cannot give authoritative answers to advanced queries, that when I'm speaking at a conference I generally only attend sessions that are given by people with skin in the game.

Hi Ted,

I'd suggest that the demise of the professional speaker has been greatly exaggerated.

I'd be much more apt to attribute the current downward trend to the economic climate than to a decline in interest by the IT industry. Conference attendance is discretionary spending so I would have been more surprised if there wasn't a downturn. And, personally, I'd hesitate to try to draw any long-term conclusions in today's economic situation.

Personally, I really enjoy the larger conferences (QCon, NFJS, JavaOne, etc.) and believe there will always be a demand for them. If anything, technology is getting more complex and there are more choices we face all the time. To me, these conferences offer an introduction to a breadth of technologies, tools and processes plus I get insights from many of the greatest thought leaders in our industry. Where else would I get to hear insights from and have discussions with guys like Josh Bloch, Martin Fowler, Rod Johnson, Martin Odersky, Ted Neward and Neal Ford?

I believe that insights from those of you that are both established experts in the field and explicators (I admit I had to look up that word from Barry's post ;) will always be in demand.

Hey Ted...

You are right to be concerned, and that is why I am in the financial industry and less in the speaker community. I started my switch about 3 years ago since I saw this trend coming down the pipe. You might think that I am jumping from the frying pan into the fire. In fact quite the opposite. Things look very good for me.

You know where this hit home to me? Authoring books... Google killed my business model, because people can Google for the same information. Heck I do it all the time, so why not the readership.

Of course your argument of professionalism is very very valid. Not arguing, but it is irrelevant, since people really don't care anymore. They get GOOD ENOUGH via the web or the code camps.

I would say face the music dude and switch! I did and have not looked back since...