How Alcatel-Lucent Gained A Free Pitching Pass As A Sponsor

The Eleven API Lounge was one of the best places to stop into when visiting the Hilton Hotel for panels at SxSW. The places was nicely decorated feeling just like a lounge. They provided  free Mimosa's for breakfast and free snacks and beer for lunch. It was pretty relaxing compared to all the hustle and bustle just on the other side of their doors. 

The center of attention in the lounge was the App Idol board beautiful drawn by their resident artist. Her drawings were of the many application suggestions that tons of folks presented in Alcatel's App Idol Contest. I happened to be one of the lucky few to win a Bose iPod/iPhone Dock System from the contest. They also gave away a MacBook Pro to another lucky young man.

The crowd it drew was an amazing mix of developers and designers. The Alcatel-Lucent team were amazing hosts. They encouraged everyone to participate and made sure people were enjoying themselves. They were not walking around pitching everyone that walked in the door about their company. They simply let conversations take their natural course. And, of course, I learned a lot more about them as a company and their ALU API platform when it had something to do with my passions, interests and thoughts.

This lounge is great and the App Idol contest was neat to participate in. If they do it again next year, count me in!