Without the collaboration and exchange of business and technology information that occurs during these live meetings, IT channel developments would likely be diminished and slowed; while some may not occur at all. Though few speak of it, attending events and networking with peers is an almost vital component to any IT channel business’ success.
The Revival of Channel Events
Next week also begins a new quarter of business, more than twelve weeks filled with a vast number of significant IT channel-focused events. Over the past few years, we have lost some extremely beneficial conferences, including COMDEX (though Everything Channel hosts a virtual version), IT ChannelVision and several data storage shows. In some cases the economy caused their demise, with solution providers and vendors tightening their budgets and scaling back travel schedules to focus more time on their business. Other events struggled a bit, but the organizers were able to overcome the channel financial concerns and focus on the benefits of their conferences. With an enhanced focus on education and networking that attendees don’t typically get locally, they persevered—like so many VARs and MSPs who reevaluated their business and made the changes necessary to survive.
In 2011, these events aren’t just carrying on, but some continue to enhance the experience for attendees with more interactive sessions, collaborative discussions and enhanced education sessions. Solution providers today want (and need) specific business instruction, best practices and benchmarks to help them build for the future. The office and legal complexities have become a bigger challenge for many VARs and MSPs than the technology, and the associations and vendors organizing channel conferences are responding with specific presentations, tools and training to help members (and partners) overcome them.
CompTIA AMM is a perfect example of this event trend. Last year the association focused on rolling out specific information and education to help solution providers prosper with healthcare IT, cloud computing, IT security and a number of other practices. Next week, expect CompTIA to take many of those topics to the next level, with additional tools, workshops and initiatives.
New communities around unified communications and managed print services will bring new focus on those channel opportunities as well. CompTIA is backing up the discussions with specific IT business practice templates, how-to guides and educational offerings to help solution providers build new technology portfolios, and the business changes required to be successful.
The List of Channel Events Continues to Grow
As I mentioned, CompTIA isn’t alone in revamping and enhancing the channel value of their events. In the coming weeks, a number of conferences, shows and partner meetings will be held across the country. These events include:
- Sugar CRM’s SugarCon in San Francisco
- Synnex’ Varnex Spring Conference in Boston
- Ingram Micro VTN Spring Invitational in Chicago
- ASCII Success Summit in Washington, D.C.
- Kaseya Connect 2011 in Las Vegas
- HTG Summit in Dallas
- Red Hat Summit in Boston
- Autotask Community Live in Miami;
- Citrix Partner Summit in San Francisco
- SMB Nation Spring in Toronto
- and a number of Everything Channel events throughout North America.
This list is by no means comprehensive and I apologize if I missed any IT channel-centric association or vendor events off one off—feel free to add them to the comment section!
Brian Sherman is founder of Tech Success Communications, specializing in editorial content and consulting for the IT channel. His previous roles include chief editor at Business Solutions magazine and industry alliances director with Autotask. Contact Brian at Bsherman@techsuccesscommunications.com.
