This is a guest post written by Jennifer Leggio, who writes about enterprise trends around social media, including security, privacy and reputation issues, for ZDNet . You’re a thought leader in your industry. You want to convene other thought leaders in one place to share ideas with each other and with those hungry to learn. Perhaps you want to showcase some technology. And you want to make some money. Your vision unfolds as a conference, to which you can attract vendors, sponsors, media and attendees. Then you think about the huge events you have attended during your career – Black Hat , DEMO , Interop – and you think there is no way you can create such an event without the backing of a major corporation or media outlet. Wrong. The era of Web 2.0 has created a freedom for entrepreneurs that never before existed – though that freedom is not without its risk. That said, all you need to get your conference idea off the ground is a nest egg investment, a good “hub” location, a strong network that you can tap for sponsors, speakers and attendees, and the power of word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) – which is exactly what it sounds like. And, while unconferences such as BarCamp , PodCamp and WordCamp are impressive, I’m talking about a bona fide technology conference. Don’t believe me? Look at Defcon as a historic example. The U.S.’ largest hacker con is said to have launched in 1993 out of a BBS that its founders and initial attendees w ...
Anytime
This is a guest post written by Jennifer Leggio, who writes about enterprise trends around social media, including security, privacy and reputation issues, for ZDNet . You’re a thought leader in your industry. You want to convene other thought leaders in one place to share ideas with each other and with those hungry to learn. Perhaps you want to showcase some technology. And you want to make some money. Your vision unfolds as a conference, to which you can attract vendors, sponsors, media and attendees. Then you think about the huge events you have attended during your career – Black Hat , DEMO , Interop – and you think there is no way you can create such an event without the backing of a major corporation or media outlet. Wrong. The era of Web 2.0 has created a freedom for entrepreneurs that never before existed – though that freedom is not without its risk. That said, all you need to get your conference idea off the ground is a nest egg investment, a good “hub” location, a strong network that you can tap for sponsors, speakers and attendees, and the power of word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) – which is exactly what it sounds like. And, while unconferences such as BarCamp , PodCamp and WordCamp are impressive, I’m talking about a bona fide technology conference. Don’t believe me? Look at Defcon as a historic example. The U.S.’ largest hacker con is said to have launched in 1993 out of a BBS that its founders and initial attendees w ...