Over the past two years we’ve gained a lot of conference experience. Whether sponsoring, exhibiting, speaking, or co-founding, we’ve participated at most tech conferences. Throughout this period we’ve learned a lot.
In July of 2007 Alex shared our insights in a popular post. The world has changed since then. In October 2008 the credit crunch hit the tech sector resulting in nearly 190,000 tech layoffs. In the face of the economic downturn we reevaluated our conference strategy for 2009. In this post we’ll share with you our thoughts behind this strategy.
So what conferences should I sponsor?
Short answer: none.
Long answer:
We’ve had mixed success with sponsorships. Some were good investments, others were not. In hindsight we could identify reasons why a specific sponsorship turned out the way it did. We could not, however, derive a formula for predicting how successful a sponsorship will be.
Conference sponsorship requires a commitment well ahead of the actual event. From a startup perspective, in an industry that moves as quickly as tech, there are too many intangibles to forecast the outcome correctly.
Regardless of the event, sponsorship is expensive for a startup. In difficult economic times it’s irresponsible to add big budget line-items with uncertain returns. For this reason we’ve decided to forgo any sponsorship in 2009.
So what conferences should I attend?
Short answer: lots.
Long answer:
Unlike sponsorship, conference registration is inexpensive and success can be ensured if you plan ahead. To maximize your success utilize tools like EventVue to prearrange meetings with attendees, schedule meetings with organizations in the region, and meet with your passionate users who are local. Executing these three items will make any conference a success.
Here are the conferences that AdaptiveBlue will be attending in 2009 and why they’re valuable events to attend:
Conference: O’Reilly Tools of Change. Date: Feb 9 - 11. Location: NYC.
We’re looking for more implementations in this vertical. This conference is a great way to connect with qualified individuals from the right firms in publishing.
Conference: FOWA. Date: Feb 23 - 24. Location: Miami.
The content is great. We will learn things that will directly benefit Glue. Most of the attendees are within our market and there are a few meetings in Miami that we will be able to have.
Conference: ETech. Date: Mar 9 - 12. Location: San Jose.
Many attendees are big thinkers. If you have a bold product it’s important to attract visionaries. A few key community members are in San Jose and there are some local groups to reengage with.
Conference: SXSW. Date: Mar 13 - 17. Location: Austin.
For the cost there’s no better conference to meet large numbers of people who love web apps. There are many opportunities to have valuable conversations: between sessions, in the blogger lounge, and late into the evening.
Conference: MIX. Date: Mar 18 - 20. Location: Las Vegas.
Mix is new to us, but we’ve heard from friends that there is no better conference focused on Internet Explorer.
Conference: SF Web 2.0 Expo. Date: Mar 31 - Apr 3. Location: SF. // Conference: NY Web 2.0 Expo. Date: Nov 16 - 19. Location: NYC.
We’ll be attending the Web 2.0 Expos in SF and NY. The content is often case-study based, providing great lessons. In SF we’ll be able to schedule a day+ worth of meetings outside of the conference.
While this is a new conference we’re confident that it will be successful. First, the organizer holds content-rich events. Second, it discusses engineering issues we’re dealing with. Third, it will give us an opportunity to take meetings with groups in Denver and Boulder.
Conference: Web 3.0. Date: May 19 - 20. Location: NYC.
A growing event that brings together key industry leaders to discuss the ‘data web.’ It’s important to have a voice in your market and these focused conferences are great opportunities for this.
Conference: Semantic Conference. Date: Jun 14 - 18. Location: San Jose.
Between the semantic technology in our product and the mark-up language we support, this is an important conference to have a voice at. Also, there are companies with semantic APIs that we will meeting with.
Conference: Gnomedex. Date: Aug 20 - 22. Location: Seattle.
Attendees include leading bloggers and tech-savvy enthusiasts, two groups in our market. We’ll also take the opportunity to schedule meetings with Seattle companies and individuals.
Conference: Web 2.0 summit. Date: Oct 20 - 22. Location: SF.
This is a gathering of technology influencers from startups, vc and big companies. There’s a great lineup of speakers and great hallway conversations. The topics focus on high level technology trends and prominent companies of the day.
Conference: Defrag 2009. Date: Nov 11 - 12. Location: Denver.
This covers similar topics to Gluecon, but from the business side. Attendees are not in our target market but are influential voices in the tech eco-system. We’ll also take the opportunity to meet groups from Denver and Boulder.
What other cool conferences are you going to attend this year?
