5 lessons from failed pitches

There’s much room for improvement for pitching and media relations.

Roughly 42,000 attendees from 134 countries gathered in Dublin this week for The Web Summit. Many attendees—along with the founders of 2,100 startups—tried to attract the attention of the 1,200 reporters and bloggers at the summit.

Though many connections were made and stories were written (including “4 nonprofit PR lessons from Movember” and “3 ways communicators can use technology effectively“), there were plenty of bad pitches to exasperate any reporter.

Here are five lessons to learn from the shortcomings of overeager technology entrepreneurs and enthusiasts:

1. Spray and pray still doesn’t work.

The Web Summit encouraged attendees to download its app, which held each person’s virtual ticket, a map of the summit and the entire three-day schedule. On top of this, app users could search speakers, startups, reporters and attendees and message them directly through the app.