The Six Five team discusses the Best Event of 2022.
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Transcript:.
Daniel Newman: You and I are professional event attendees. Over 2022, who was your award winner for best event and why?
Patrick Moorhead: Yeah. I sometimes joke that we are industry analysts or professional event attenders, and I think I spent 42 weeks on the road this year. We attended a lot of events and this is a tough one.
Of course, I want to say, “Hey, the Six Five Summit is the best event that I ever went to.” Hey, there’s Bill. Bill just came in. How about that? Bill Huff. Huh?
Daniel Newman: I said hey, Bill.
Patrick Moorhead: What’s up, Bill? Thanks for coming, buddy. I’ll see you tomorrow on the plane. But best event, it’s a tough one. Qualcomm had some really good events. The one in New York, the one in Hawaii. Heck, IBM Think, best small event that I went to when events came back. But I got to tell you, I’m going with Cisco Partner Summit and the reason that I gave it that was first off, senior executive accessibility is big for my determinations on technology and companies. It’s just the way that I roll.
Literally, nearly every senior executive staff member was just at the cocktail hour. I think Chuck was the only person on the staff who didn’t show up, but he came in and talked to the analysts and I got to chit-chat with him. That’s absolutely huge for me, so I got to hand it to the folks at Cisco. Good job on that event. Here’s the funny part, Dan, and maybe it’s because I wasn’t expecting it to be a good event, because I like tech and I like announcements and they rehashed a lot, but it got me center lined.
But you know me and execs, I like the senior exec thing. I can smoke them out after a 15-minute conversation. I do respect the products and everything coming out, but I get what I need from the senior execs.
Daniel Newman: Absolutely. I didn’t attend that one, but I do remember you coming back. I even think on one of our episodes here you were glowing about it. Again, as professional event attendees, we really do get a sense of what’s good and not.
It’s hard to streamline it down to one. You actually already gave my pick away, but before I give my pick, I did want to give a little bit of context.
Patrick Moorhead: I didn’t give your pick away.
Daniel Newman: Well, you mentioned who I picked when you discussed the ones that you liked. The criteria, I think, is different for overall best. I guess it’s a little bit of all these things. You mentioned one thing, I do think executive access and either one-on-one or small group time is very important. I think time value is super important. How many days do we have to spend to get what we need? Because when you’re in as many events as we are, there’s a combination of this nice to be back in person.
But there’s also this other side of like, “Hey, let me get the info and get onto my next thing.” One other is location. Where are you doing the event? You mentioned Hawaii, obviously great event. Of course, the downside is it takes a full day, day and a half to get to and from. If you can feel good about sacrificing the time, waking up in Hawaii is never a bad thing. Of course, there’s other parts around the world that we go to events that are really great.
Another thing, Pat, you didn’t mention that I really weigh heavily is treatment of us as analysts. Huge thing for me is certain events you’re basically treated no different than any other attendee, which again is fine. But when you do as many events as us, I think having a little extra love, good meals, having a lot of coffee available, making sure that people are handling you, getting you to your meetings. There were some great events like that. For instance, Salesforce, Oracle will do great jobs of that kind of stuff.
But my pick, IBM Think, you mentioned it. I fell in love with this smaller event this year. I fell in love with smaller, more intimate events. I really enjoyed AWS re:Invent, Pat, and doing all that, but the size of that event creates stress for me. When you can do an event that was in a small location, a small place, get access to a ton of executives, get in and get out together, I think that was the perfect storm of activity, time, executive access and handling of us that I just would love to see more events like that.
I don’t know that companies can get a good return at scale doing events that small, but for analysts it was perfect. Pat goes with Cisco Partner Summit and I go with IBM Think..
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
