You knew it wasn’t going to be good for Joel when he had to elicit his own round of applause upon being announced.

I’m at that ERExpo in San Diego. I just walked out of Jason Goldberg’s Jobster presentation where he brought to the stage, Joel Cheesman for what Joel was hyping as Jobster vs. Cheezhead.

Background

Last week Joel took a shot a Jason. It was not the first.

Jason responds by inviting Joel to, ‘get out from behind his computer,’ and share the stage at ERE to ask any 5 questions he wanted.

At the time, I thought it was a bad move for Jason and a good move for Joel.

Jobster stood nothing to gain by Jason shutting up Joel. The time and spotlight shared with Joel would return more to Jobster if it was invested in pitching Jobster or in offering more tech and market insight to recruiters.

For Joel, it was a typical move and one that could have returned him and JobCentral(his sponsor) more exposure at no cost.

High Noon(not quite)

In the end, Jason’s polish and professionalism proved too much for the work from home blogger. Jason had control. He made sure it was a Q&A and didn’t allow Joel to make a spectacle of him or Jobster. Jason came across as a clean cut, young CEO who’s had to make some tough decisions in the interest of his company and customers.

Joel didn’t come across as good. He seemed more interested in poking holes than adding value to the recruiters in the audience. He didn’t know his audience which was made up of corporate recruiters, not Cheezhead diehards.

While Jason came out on top, I still don’t think it returned much to Jobster. He probably could have returned more to Jobster by making better use of the time. This was an ego thing which brings us back to Joel’s earlier question…Is Jason killing Jobster?

I don’t think so. He has an ego. So do I, so do most business leaders.