PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD So here’s a confession. I attended every single Fall Comdex show from the first one in 1979 at the old MGM Grand (now Bally’s post-fire) to the 2003 event at the Sands Convention Center. Every year a week in Vegas, every year a chance to network with industry peers, every year a chance to spend half of each day waiting for taxicabs and bad cafeteria food at the convention center.
Through it all, I did enjoy Comdex. We’d sell lots of gear and meet lots of customers, but I mostly made presentations and lots of them, sometimes eight a day. Little did I realize that those trade show presentations would eventually kill Comdex early in the 21st century.
So how did I kill Comdex? With Webcasts and virtual trade shows. As a marketing vice president back in 2000, I met with some eWEEK execs to learn about a newfangled marketing tool they were offering to the ASP I worked for at the time. Yeah, we did SaaS (software as a service) before it had a cool name. These Webcasts, which they dubbed eWEEK eSeminars, would allow us to give trade show presentations without attendees or presenters ever having to leave their respective offices. Attendees could download handouts and “exhibitors” could even hand out tchotchkes just like Vegas. I loved the idea and signed up for one on the spot.
Then, as fate would have it, I was recruited to become a Ziff Davis Enterprise Market Expert. One of the responsibilities of the new gig: present at and moderate our eSeminar Webcasts and virtual trade shows. Before long, I was doing about one a day, and here I am a decade later with over a thousand Webcasts under my belt. About two years into my reign of terror in cyber-space, Comdex folded. Many IT execs hardly noticed.
So, instead of vendors trying to corral 20 or 30 people into an overheated convention center meeting room with a crooked LCD projection, we have hundreds or thousands of registrants and attendees for virtual events that have a much more relaxed dress code than even Las Vegas hotels. If you’re looking to learn about new technologies or tech trends, Webcasts give you a way to hear from and interact with both editors and industry experts. For tech companies promoting a product or service, Webcasts have proven to be an integral part of the buying process and continue to draw eyeballs year after year.
Today’s Webcasting platforms offer integration with social-media tools so you can have those back-channel discussions during the events, tweet with a relevant hashtag, and pass the info to colleagues on LinkedIn or Facebook. The only thing missing is the stale cigarette smoke and water pitcher in the back of the room, and somehow I think we’re doing just fine without them.
So…sorry Comdex, I guess Las Vegas belongs to CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) now.
Michael Krieger began his IT career as a mainframe programmer/analyst in the early 1970s. He has led the development and marketing of data communications, super-server, blade and SaaS products for a variety of tech companies and is currently vice president of the Market Experts Group at Ziff Davis Enterprise
Good morning from Los Angeles! #ibmcloudThat's it from me! Over to North America.The data processing of Roland Garros 2012 (#RG12) rests on IBM Private Cloud http://t.co/JUaY1ItM [French Press release]IBM Accelerates Business from Supply to Demand with New #Cloud Offerings For Smarter Commerce http://t.co/OFxknOb0 [Press Release]How IBM #SmartCloud Foundation technology powers cloud adoption?
IBM VP @SLHebner explains here http://t.co/sSzfa0O5 [VIDEO]IBM's Fiona Cullen will present ‘The Power of #Cloud: Driving Business Model’ On May 24 @ Utrecht, Netherlands #cloudforum2012 #ibmcloudBlog Post: Why service providers should not ignore cloud http://t.co/ZfQyue4r via @eMarcusNet #thoughtsoncloudHave any #cloudmoment? Share your story with us via Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and tag it. See other stories http://t.co/J4ntsaQ5Sign up now for IBM #SmartCloud Enterprise! No charge for select VMs (only till May 28). More Details >> http://t.co/2LEzOUZC #ibmcloudRT @HansMoen: See this video from @IBMCloud to learn how to cut costs in building innovation in your business http://t.co/XOyJoFn6 #clou ...
Like us on Facebook 
Follow us on Twitter 
Get the Smarter Tech Newsletter 
Register to view the archived "Data Center Optimization Techniques: Stop Wasting Time & Money" eSeminar
Register Now > 
