With over 3,000 conferences held each year, finding the ones that best suit your needs can be difficult
Alon Alroy, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Bizzabo, which offers a networking and mobile platform for event organizers and attendees, believes that attending conferences provides the opportunity to meet the right venture capital firms, explore possible partnerships, and network with industry insiders.
“It’s important to take the time to figure out who’s coming, who you want (and need) to meet, as well as what the most important content of the conference is for you,” Alroy told Business News Daily. “Conferences can be a door opener — a great impression and the right connection can mean the difference between propelling forward or fading into obscurity.”
If you’re not already at the Web Summit, one of the biggest and most anticipated technology conferences around, which is happening right now in Dublin, Ireland, you can still catch up on what’s happening via their Web Summit site. This is likely THE biggest technology conference around, and is ripe with influencers. Last year Bono attended, and this year Forbes calls it “The new hot ticket on the tech conference scene.”
Alas, if you are missing the Web Summit this year, don’t worry. Here are six worthy upcoming conferences you should consider:
- South By Southwest™ Interactive: The event features five days of presentations and panels from the brightest minds in emerging technology, a number of networking events hosted by industry leaders, and a lineup of programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. This year’s event will be held between March 7-11 in Austin, Texas.
- The DataDriven Business Conference: The event is designed to show business owners how they can drive their operations using data analytics. The conference is scheduled for March 16-21 in San Francisco, California.
- VentureBeat Mobile Summit: Top executives from the mobile industry gather to meet and debate how to accelerate adoption, engagement and monetization via the six biggest growth opportunities in mobile today: predictive apps, advances in mobile ad tech, mobile analytics tools, designing “work-life balance” in mobile apps, mobile-driven retail markets, and wearables. The event is scheduled for April 14-15 in Sausalito, California.
- TechCrunch Disrupt NYC: The conference features panels of special speakers, TechCrunch writers and editors, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs addressing the most important topics facing today’s tech landscape. This year’s conference will be held between May 5-7 in New York City.
- The Technology Business Management (TBM) Conference: Pegged as “The only conference focused on managing the business of IT”, the TBM Conference is a great opportunity to connect with other executives to share challenges and best practices in running an IT organization. (2015 date TBD)
- Tableau Conference: Designed to help you get the most out of your data discovery, the Tableau conference, “an edu-vacation for data devotees from near and far” sells out every year, so act quickly. Next year’s conference will be held between October 19-23 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Does your company regularly attend conferences? What do you gain? How does it affect your management decisions and workflow? Do you have any favorites? If so, make your recommendations in the comments below!