A great success – our first conference

Last week we held our first conference, IoT in Oil and Gas. We had great feedback from sponsors, speakers and delegates – it was truly gratifying to see my team’s hard work pay off and the company playing an important role in the knowledge and business development of our community.

In the conference business, it is often easy to forget why we do what we do. We put our heads down and work, work, work – often for the sake of working. We have to remind ourselves to focus on the end game – which is delivering successful conferences that educate, inspire and create business opportunities. This is often about making personal connections – understanding what each and every attendees goals of attending are – and doing our utmost to help them achieve these goals.

The conference was also the first time our Conference Connect platform was used – and with over 130 people signing in, and 200+ messages sent, it was very well utilized onsite. I believe the platform will continue to evolve, and play an increasing role in all our events.

No conference runs perfectly – and having run 100s of conferences in over 25 countries I often tend to focus/obsess on what is wrong, rather than what is right. Obsessing over the detail is important so we can continIMG_0117ue to get better, and provide a better experience for our customers. I came back with a list of 20+ things we can do better, and between now and our next conference (in 3 weeks) we will work on these areas.

So – thank you to everyone who attended, and especially to those companies and individuals who supported our first event from Day One. It showed faith in our people, ideas and business model, for which I am grateful.

We are around for the long haul – and I look forward to many conferences to come.

FEEDBACK FROM THE FIRST CONFERENCE

“The IoT in Oil and Gas was a great show.  I know I, and other Microsoft partners, had meaningful conversations with customers.”

-Randy Hoppe, Industry Director – Oil & Gas, Energy and Process Industries, Microsoft

“The venue was intimate and the right contact titles visited our booth. We had over 50 attendees come by to inquire who we were and how we could provide solutions. This event definitely added value to our business.”
-Mark Smith, Business Development, Signal Boosters

“It was a great conference.  I enjoyed the content and made some nice connections.”
– Dr. Cory Steffek, Managing Director, North America, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures

“I really loved the energy and how everyone was collaborative – sharing ideas and helping each other. At a lot of these conferences you get a lot of salespeople that come in and sell their products, whereas this was more about trading ideas, finding answers to issues and talking about the future – how we can tackle some of those real-world challenges. ”
-Rick Harlow, Vice President Global IoT M2M Solutions & Business Development, Integron

Photos can be found at http://mininginnov.wpengine.com/iot-in-oil-and-gas-conference/iot-in-oil-and-gas_attend/

Posted by Symon Rubens