Events that CIOs actually love For the past few months, I’ve been working with a company that has quietly pulled off a major coup in the corporate events business. You’ve probably never heard of Evanta, and that’s just fine with them. What you will be hearing more about – particularly in you’re in tech marketing - is the CIO Executive Summits.

The Summits are a series of regional, one-day events that attract the top chief information officers (CIOs) in the country for a day of speeches, networking and camaraderie. They are without a doubt the best IT events I have ever attended (and I’ve attended hundreds). Marketers and publishers could learn a lot from what Evanta is doing.

Tech publishers have been trying to create successful, sustainable conferences for CIOs for two decades. Their efforts have mostly failed. Believe me; I’ve been involved in several of those failures.

Evanta, in contrast, is not only attracting the right people, but it’s got them actively involved with and enthusiastic about the events. Case in point: last week in New York, more than 300 CIOs showed up for the tri-state event and only 275 were pre-registered. Think about that, event marketers: in a business in which 50% attrition is considered normal, this company is getting negative attrition.

I just got back from Washington, where more than 150 CIOs packed the conference held in the Georgetown University Conference Center. I was privileged to moderate a panel that included the CIOs from the FBI and CIA. The CIO of the Department of Justice had gone on just before us. The CIOs of the State Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (the most important national security body in the U.S.) were in the audience. The CIO of the American Red Cross gave the closing keynote. It goes on an on. Look at the agenda. And there will be 18 events just like the two I mentioned in 2007.

The proceedings are off the record, so I can’t talk about what was said at either event. However, I will point out a few reasons why I believe Evanta is experiencing this phenomenal success:

• They focus on the audience, not the sponsors. The slogan of the event series is “By CIOs, For CIOs,” and they really mean it. Each event has a governing body of CIOs who conference regularly and tell Evanta what they want: topics to cover, speakers to recruit, even the vendors to exhibit. Then the Evanta team goes and does what the board wants. Hundreds of hours of background work go into each event, but the CIOs never see that. What they see is that they describe their perfect conference and then the facilitators make it so. No questions asked.

• It’s off the record. No press is invited except in a speaking or moderating role and proceedings are strictly off the record. No ambiguity about that. The CIOs can talk with each other without worrying about something they say showing up in the press. This is important to them.

• They keep a tight leash on exhibitors. This is where most other efforts crash and burn. Publishers give the bill-paying sponsors too much say in the program, to the point that the stage becomes a soapbox for marketers. CIOs are some of the most cynical people in the world about marketing and they quickly abandon these events.

In contrast, Evanta gives marketers almost no stage presence. A couple of top sponsors get worked into the program, but the speakers must be CIOs themselves or the top officers in the company. You will never find someone with a marketing title on stage. The exhibits area is tasteful and low-key. And you have to be invited by the governing body to even have a chance to exhibit in the first place. To say that the exhibitors are on their best behavior is an understatement.

• They give away good stuff. In Washington, the conference concluded with a drawing in which no less than 13 trips to resort destinations were dispensed to the attendees. With 150 CIOs in attendance, the odds were pretty good. So is it any surprise that the room was nearly full at 5:30 p.m.?

There are many other details, but that’s the nub of it, in my view: give people an event they want; don’t let sponsors take control and give the audience incentives to stay all day. It’s working incredibly well for Evanta because they’ve never taken their eyes off the ball. A lot of media companies could learn from this.

(P.S. If Evanta sounds like a good acquisition candidate, it’s too late. The company was acquired by DMG World Media last year).

Labels: IT events CIO

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