Jeff Mann of Gartner describes the mammoth effort that goes into planning and delivering its Symposium around the world.
Fascinating to see how that institution survives (and thrives) even as the tech industry morphs:
- Virtual conferences and telepresence? Ha! "Nothing beats the 5 days, hundreds of sessions and chance to mingle with thousands of your peers. We even have an event justification worksheet to help you defend to your boss why you need to go."
- Balloting and crowd sourcing of session and speaker ideas? More ha! "Our analysts are the best - we don't need more speakers or session ideas."
- Speakers with personal blogs and other social networks? Blog/Schmlog! " A few of our analysts do blog (15% of analysts in this track) but their value add is they are experts in their spaces. Come meet them in person"
Dear readers, you going this year?
