Posts Tagged ‘conferences’

Posted on January 18, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

infographic – How to get the best value from attending technology conferences?

When trying to make a list of technology conferences you should attend and getting approval from you boss can be a tough challenge. You’re going to be asked what is the value from the conference, who do you plan to meet with influencers and/or land new deals all while in the back of your mind you’re thinking about what parties you want to attend. To help you make those decisions, FutureSimple.com has created an infographic called “How to make the most out of a conference day”

Provided by FutureSimple.com

Does your conference strategy look like the one above?

Posted on October 22, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Why technology, startup, entrepreneur, social media conference organizers cannot fix the lack diversity problem at their events.

Last week at this time I was in Las Vegas attending Blogworld Expo 2010. For Blogworld it was their fourth year and my second time attending. I had a great time meeting new friends and catching up with old ones while learning a few tips here and there. Blogworld markets itself as the world’s largest social media conference with over 3,000 attendees. Note, if you’re wondering about SXSW, SXSW is NOT a social media conference it’s an interactive tech conference with some social media sessions. During lunch on opening day at Blogworld I was sitting with a few friends and I looked around the room and noticed the lack of diversity. It’s something I’m sadly familiar with as I’ve been in the tech/web industry since 1994 but sometimes it’s just to depressing not to say anything about. Therefore without sounding like an angry mad black nerd I tweeted the following. “Standing out at @blogworld like a drop of oil in a cup of milk #bwe10 #justsayin

Sorry, Blogworld Expo organizers (Rick, Dan, Deb, Chuck, Hadji and Chris) it was nothing targeted to you or the conference saying you did a bad job trying to diversity the event or that I felt unconformable. I was just stating the obvious but if you felt otherwise I apologize. After the tweet, a few individuals saw it and said they noticed the same thing and others started checking to see if I was ok, I was. Rick and I talked and had a brief conversation about how he has tried in the past two years to add more diversity to Blogworld and a few other options for next years event. Some of my white friends who didn’t even see the tweet mentioned how they even noticed the lack of diversity at the conference. But still that doesn’t mean there wasn’t no diversity at the event. Here’s a photo from the #kloutup with some of the Blogworld attendees.

photo by: amanichannel

While lately in the Silicon Valley there’s been some heated conversation around the lack of women in tech, I dare to say there’s much bigger problem in the web/tech industry and that is the lack of diversity in tech. But you won’t see that on to many main stream tech blogs outside of Blackweb 2.0 because there’s very few tech diversity writers and writing about diversity doesn’t pay the bills. J

There’s also a big diversity problem when it comes to entrepreneurship, innovation and launching web/tech startups. In a report earlier this year it stated that only 1% of Internet startups being founded where black and around 1% of black founded startups were getting funded. Add those numbers to the fact that most African-Americans are online are reading gossip blogs, making rap & booty videos and lead the nation in sending SMS there’s a big online culture problem that’s not getting better anytime soon. Also when it comes to who are the VC’s and investors in the web/tech space, let’s just say if there’s only 1% of internet startups who are minorities there’s an even smaller number who have capital to invest in future startups therefore we’re going to continue to see the same demographic that we’re currently seeing in the VC investor space.

Screenshot of the sFund announcement made on October 21, 2010.

The sFund is a new $250 million Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers initiative to invest in entrepreneurs inventing social applications and services — Amazon.com, Facebook, and Zynga, the leading companies defining today’s social and online environment; entertainment and media leaders Comcast and Liberty Media, and Allen & Company LLC, who have committed to invest in the sFund and serve as strategic partners

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that but as the report states, if you’re not white, you better come with your A game and a great team if you’re thinking about asking for VC or an angle investments from anyone in Palo Alto.

Venture Capital Human Capital Report (Part 1) –

There’s also the whole, let’s add a rapper who likes technology to our conference and therefore we have the diversity situation solved. I’m not saying rappers, such as Chamillionaire, MC Hammer or Jermaine Dupri don’t belong at tech conferences or are not qualified because they are. But to only add artist that’s well known instead of doing research to find other willing and qualified monitory speakers in the tech/web space is a problem and some see it as disrespectful. Regardless as Chamillionaire stated in this post he should be participating in tech events for his career and the future of the music industry. But dear conference organizers, music artist do not represent the majority of who’s making ways in technology. Would you add Britney Spears to a women in tech panel just because she has a Twitter account? #justsayin Hmm, well don’t answer that.

Personally I’ve been what some have considered lucky to speak at over 60 meetups and conferences. In 2010 I’ve had my first two closing keynote talks and one more upcoming closing keynote panel. I have three more speaking events and I’m done for a long time. So, to the person who told @keyinfluencer they’re tired of seeing James Andrews and myself as the two black guys speaking the most at tech events, you don’t have to worry about me after November 18 as the Internet Summit is my last event.

With that being said here are my thoughts along with some feedback from others to why technology, entrepreneur, and social media conference organizers cannot fix the lack diversity problem. Note, I’m going to use the word “some” and “most” a few times because despite my experience the comments below do not apply to all races and/or minorities just what I’ve seen personally or heard from others.

• There is a bigger culture problem offline
• Racism exist and it’s not going anywhere or will be fixed any time soon.
• The digital divide in terms of race, privilege, location and access is growing
• “Most” African-Americans in the tech/web space don’t want to pay more than $100 if that to attend a conference
• Minorities feel uncomfortable at events that are not directly targeted to or the focus
• Minorities like to hold and host their own events where they have more control
• African-Americans don’t fly as much as other races
• If conference organizers add minorities to events just because of their race and not because of their work/value then others will be upset and it’s not fair to the attendees
• Attitudes – I’ll leave it at that
• Conference organizers don’t know who to ask or where to look for minority speakers
• Minorities are not trying hard enough (including myself) to help educate others about entrepreneurship, social networks, web/tech startups and online technology
• Overheard: “It’s a White’s man Internet, we’re just tweeting in it”

I think I had more but I’m getting depressed just thinking about it.

In 2009 while attending FOWA I had a chance to interview with Chris Messina who’s been a voice over the years noticing the lack of diversity at internet conferences and web startups. Chris provides some advice for both minorities and event organizers to overcome this problem.

If you have other solutions, please let me know in the comments

Posted on October 3, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

This is it: 7 days, 3 cities, 2 panels, 2 presentations, 1 live video show and the end of the road!

Today I start one of the most interesting trips in my life and career as a speaker. I’m currently in Boston, MA for FutureM week where I’ll be speaking on a location panel at GeoM and Inbound Marketing Summit. Tuesday, I’m hosting a live #GEOchat show from SCVNGR HQ. Thursday I’m leaving Boston for Michigan to present at Brandcamp and closing out the week I’ll present in Miami, Fl for Blogalicious 2010. If you count it, that’s 7 days, 3 cities, 2 panels, 2 presentations & 1 live video show.

Earlier this year while planning my schedule I new this week was going to be crazy but now that it’s here I’m shaking my head and asking myself what was I thinking! Everything starts tomorrow and I’m stressed out like Vampire trying to get home before the sunrise. Before agreeing to the events I wasn’t managing the new coworking/incubator office at Designbox. Also I didn’t know how I would feelbleaving LaToya aka “thewife” home expecting as she’s now four months away from #babysutton being born. Regardless, no time for stress, as it’s time to deliver to conference attendees information about why everyone should care about location based services and the upcoming TriOut world edition.

flickr photo By: Stuck in Customs

The end of the road:
Today also starts the end of a two year journey for me. After speaking/presenting and taking part of various panels at meetups, conferences and workshops, the last 10 commitments I have from now to the end of November will be the end of the road for me. Since 2008 I have spoken over 60 times and although at love it, a few things have changed along the way. Somewhere it stopped being fun and more stressful for me. Along with the fact I never thought I was good at speaking anyway and if you would tell some of my elementary classmates that I was speaking at conferences they would laugh knowing that as child I was in speech class from 3rd grade to middle school. Taking some advice from Dennis Crowley, Co-founder at Foursquare, who once told me if he spoke at all the events he was asked to speak at you’ll never get anything done. Plus most of the time before speaking I’m always supper nervous. Add that to the now competitive industry of web/tech speaking, everyone is a speaker now. Also I feel like now is a good time to slow down with LaToya and I expecting our first child, working at Designbox and trying to take TriOut to the next level. Maybe I’ll work on that book I wanted to have done by middle of the year.

I did reach some personal goals in terms of speaking such as being a keynote speaker and speaking at SXSW and BlogWorld but I never did make it to Web 2.0 Expo. Since 2008 I’ve traveled more in my life than I have the previous 32 years. I won’t say that I’ll never, ever speak at a conference or meetup again because of two things. One, money talks and two we still have TriOut to run. Meaning if a conference is beneficial to TriOut, like Where 2.0 we would consider it. I do have a talk submitted for SXSW 2011 that I’m waiting to see if approved and that may be the last time but for now I have 10 events left to close out the year. So, tomorrow starts the beginning of the end at GeoM and it ends at the Internet Summit on November 18 in Raleigh, NC. Seems like a good way to go out being Raleigh is my home.

To everyone who gave me an opportunity speak and/or participate at your event thank you.

Posted on September 23, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Attend GeoM and learn why Geo Location Matters and what is the future of location-based services

Originally posed by and on SchneiderMike.com

October 4-8, MITX presents Future M week in Boston. On October 4th, brands, marketers, technologists, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, students and business people and will gather in Cambridge at the Microsoft NERD to talk about the future of geo location and the future of geo marketing. Yes. This is a promotional post for an event that my company, Allen & Gerritsen is planning, but since you have read this far, I think you will find the content helpful in making a decision as to whether or not you should attend. For the record, I think you should, particularly if you are a B2C brand or working in the B2C space.

Making Money with Location

Everyone needs to be able to make money to be able to be a going-concern. In this panel, Jason Keath of Social Fresh leads a discussion that will look at revenue streams and service models that make sense. We’ll talk to two platforms that started with revenue models. David Chang will represent Where.com and Wayne Sutton will talk about Triout’s model. We also have Josh Karpf of mega-brand PepsiCo who can tell us about how applications like Pepsi Loot are important to their marketing and revenue stream. Jason Keath is not known for shyness, so I expect he will pose the tough questions and drive panelists toward talking about useful models and cases that drive business results.

Data and Loyalty

Why does it matter? Location is an important component in doing what every brand would like to do – provide a relevant message to its audience at a time when the receiver is ready to hear and act on the message. Everyone would like a reduction of noise and an increase in overall signal. The future of marketing is not casting a wide net, rather brands conitinue to hone their communications and become trusted companions that better the lives of those who need them. In order for this to happen the way we all would like it to happen, brands need access to data and they need to be willing to give something in return to receive.

In the panel entitled “Data and Loyalty”, Melissa Parrish of Forrester leads a discussion with 2 of the industry’s top thought leaders on LBS, Aaron Strout of Powered Inc and Simon Salt of Incslingers. They have not only been vocal about the space, but built solutions that incorporate their thinking. With the focus of this panel being data, we are elated to have the founder of SimpleGeo, Matt Galligan coming out to talk about how their database / backbone aligns the ecosystem by eliminating the disparity across platforms thereby making near limitless applications possibilities – possible.

The Future of Geo

The day culminates in a visit from 3 of the top LBS platforms on the market. In the last panel we will talk to three heads of LBS technology shops and give them the opportunity not only to talk about their current plans for word domination, but about how they see the industry evolving. Jeff Holden of Whrrl, Seth Priebatsch of SCVNGR and Dennis Crowley of Foursquare, three very different location based platforms, will be asked to talk about why location is important today and what it means in the grand scheme and how it becomes increasingly useful for everyone. The end game needs to be a win for brands, consumers and for platforms and currently the fog-of-new is still very prevalent. Each company has a story to tell about engagement with the consumer, rewards, loyalty and relevant content.

This conversation will be 90 minutes so there will be plenty of time to get deep on the topic and to get the crowd involved. I’ll be moderating and as I prepare, would love to get your thoughts on some of the things you would like to hear about from these 3 gurus. Just leave a comment.

How Much?

$130 per person. Beam Interactive thinker and disruptor, Graham Nelson tweeted about the charge and I think this is the proper forum to address the question. We want to be able to provide snacks and libation to our audience and record the event while covering some of our costs. As you well know, it takes a lot of time and effort to plan an event of this size (and it’s nothing compared to the entire Future M event, kudos to MITX!). The point of this session is to provide an atmosphere to push the conversation to the next level. As one of the missions of Future M, the parent conference, is to promote innovation in Boston, we are currently talking to MIT about donating any profits to an innovation scholarship.

Where’s Gowalla?

Because some of you have asked: Where’s Gowalla? Brightkite and Gowalla both expressed regret for being unable to attend. Facebook is still a non-responder.

See You There!

Come out for a day of discussion filled with a balance of best practices, ideas, innovation and though leadership.

To register, go to the official Geo M site and click register.



Posted on September 3, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Follow Friday: Seven upcoming location-based events you should follow… I mean attend

It’s Friday and that means it’s Follow Friday on Twitter but like last week I’m going to do a blog post instead a follow Friday tweet but with a little twist. This week I’m listing events and not just any kind of events but location-based conferences/meetups events. Here are seven upcoming location-based conferences/meetups/events/summits you should follow… I mean attend.

1. NYC Geo/Mobile Hack Day
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 9:00 AM – Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 7:00 PM (ET)
RSVP

2. Location Business Summit USA
September 14-15 2010, Crowne Plaza, San Jose,)
RSVP

3. Social Media Week LA: Location-Based Marketing: To Check-in or Not to Check-in?
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (PT)
RSVP

4. Location Based Marketing Summit
New Yorker Hotel, New York · September 29 – September 30, 2010
RSVP

5. Geo M – The Future of Geo Marketing and Technology
Microsoft New England Research and Development Center · Monday, October 4, 2010
RSVP

6. BlogWorld LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION! Panel
October 14-16, Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV
RSVP

7. Internet Summit, Location Panel
November 17-18, 2010, Raleigh Convention Center, Raleigh, NC
RSVP

I’ll be attending a few of the conferences above, please check-in and say hello if you’re planning to attend. Enjoy your Friday and have a safe weekend.