* Identity management trade shows fill up 2008
My Network World newsletter colleague Michael Osterman recently asked if trade shows were still useful, a subject I’ve explored before, but not recently. So as the year 2007 comes to an end, perhaps it’s time to re-think the benefit of trade shows.
My Network World newsletter colleague Michael Osterman, writing in the Unified Communications newsletter recently asked if trade shows were still useful, a subject I’ve explored before, but not recently. So as the year 2007 comes to an end, perhaps it’s time to re-think the benefit of trade shows.
In a newsletter published four years ago I wrote that it had been almost three years since I had attended a big trade event (it was NetWorld Interop Atlanta in the fall of 2000). Three years without a Comdex or a PC Expo or a NetWorld or an Interop. Had I become a hermit? Not surprisingly, I can now write that it’s been over 7 years since my last “big show” – that same NetWorld Interop in the fall of 2000. But I’m still traveling just as much, if not more.
What I said in 2003 is still true: I still go to as many trade events each year as I ever did – in fact, I might go to more now. But they are smaller, more focused events. Just this fall, for example, there’s been Digital ID World (see my reports here.and here), the Gartner ID Summit and the Internet Identity Workshop. Next year should include those as well as the Burton Group’s Catalyst, NetPro’s Directory Experts Conference, the RSA Conference, Courion’s Converge and my first European Identity Conference this coming April in Munich. That’s a lot more events – and, especially, a lot more identity-related events – then were even held 10 years ago.
While it’s true that most of the information you can gather at these events is also available somewhere on the Web, it’s the “network effect” that makes them interesting and informative. According to Bob Metcalfe, father of Ethernet, the value of the network is proportional to the square of the number of users. So too, the value of an identity discussion is proportional to the square of the number of participants. Talking to someone about identity is good. Involving a few people through an e-mail discussion, chat board or wiki is better. But getting a large number of interested parties together – either in a large room, under a big tent or gathered around the bar – is the way new and interesting ideas and theories are born. I’m going to keep going to these events and I hope you are too. You can find out more about them here and follow the links to the registration pages.
