Having organized a fair number of events and spoken at a fair number more over the years, I’ve become quite observant when it comes to how sponsors get involved. At a panel discussion for a Social Media Club chapter event last year (the location and topic will remain confidential), I was rather disturbed at the regional sales manager for a big brand. He was on the panel, which was talking about the industry that his company was in. Yet when the discussion turned to him with a legitimate question about how his company was dealing with issue X or Y, it took him about five seconds to flip the answer to a pitch for a new product line.