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Time to bring back the software user conference

Tech conferences are quickly becoming a waste of time. Here's how to fix them.
Written by Holger Mueller, Analyst
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Time to end the gimmicks

As an industry observer, I attend something like 40+ user conferences a year. My first industry conference, as a German native was of course... CeBIT in Hannover back in 1986.

Every tech company has a user conference these days. And is it just me, or are they all starting to feel the exact same? Same announcements, same message, same speakers, same venue. Rinse, repeat.

On top of this sameness, irrelevant gimmicks and lack of substance threaten to drag the tech user conference into obsolescence. But all is not lost.

Here are a few areas in which tech conferences are going astray, and a few ideas about how to fix them.

POV

What do you see out there? If you are a user or a vendor reading this -- share your observations from the recent user conferences. Is the conference industry heading in the right -- or not so right direction? And most importantly: in your POV, what is your ideal user conference? Please comment. See you at the next conference!

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