Sorry to be a little impolitic but what was the value of having a room full of senior administrators and marketing professional read press releases at each other?

For some people, this and other similar summary status forums are their only (or at least primary) methods for insight into the state of the field. It’s not really aimed at you as a practitioner, I believe, unless you just want to look at the presentations for things you haven’t checked into recently. This doesn’t mean it has no value.

@AlanSill Did I write that the content had no value? Please show me... Just saying the set of talks had the feeling of "this meeting could have been an email" to it.