Ebb and Flow - Conferences come and go

2007-03-22 21:26 | Permanent Link | Locative

All Points has an item about GITA's attendence drop. I've been to one GITA, a long time ago, when someone asked me to talk at a workshop. I've been to a total of four traditional "geo" events. I find them interesting in the abstract, but since I'm not a geographer, I'm really not their target audience.

What really struck me was the percentage of people who were not vendors or VIPs. Of the 1520 people there, only 64% were "actual" attendees. The positive spin by GITA was that there was a 14% increase in seminar registrations. That resonates with me, I want to learn things when I travel to conferences.

Now contrast GITA with some other events.

FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial) traces back its roots a few years. And even if the conferences were not all called FOSS4G, it's been growing year over year. This year in Victoria, BC, FOSS4G2007 is expected to top 500 people, and since it's not really an exhibitor or VIP oriented affair, most of those 500 will be "actual" attendees.

Another booming geo conference is Where 2.0 - the 3rd iteration is coming up. I've been to the last two and they were barnburner events compared to the traditional geo conferences.

I've not yet been to a Location Intelligence conference, but I'm getting the sense that these are also pretty hot places to be.

I think it boils down to a couple of things. Most people may not have the travel budgets they used to have so they have to pick and choose more carefully. At the same time, it could be argued that the "Return On Investment" of going to a conference is higher when it matches your customer base more precisely. And, let's face it, it's more fun to hit an "edgy" event.

My picks for this year barring any changes are Where 2.0 and FOSS4G. Location Intelligence is a near miss.

Comments

2007-03-22 23:55 | Posted by Paul Ramsey | http://geotips.blogspot.com

While the generalist GIS conferences shrivel, one conference just keeps getting bigger and bigger -- the ESRI International User Conference. Like a black hole gobbling up dwarf stars, each generalist conference to go down the tubes just frees up more travel and education budgets to feed the UC. You mentioned Where 2.0 and FOSS4G as two events bucking the trend. The other one I have heard mentioned is GeoIntel.

2007-03-23 01:00 | Posted by Brian Timoney | http://www.thetimoneygroup.com

Allan:

I think the larger issue is that different conferences have different audiences/strengths and that there's disappointment when an attendee finds a mismatch between their expectations and what they find.

Location Intelligence draws a lot of upper level folks and execs who aren't traditional core GIS users who are looking for ways to integrate "location" with their existing BI systems, etc. Where 2.0 on the other hand is a bit Silicon Valley-ish for my tastes with all sorts of start-ups peddling ideas that all too often haven't been road-tested in the real world i.e. technology in search of an application, etc.

I've been touting FOSS4G 2007 to colleagues here in Denver because to me it represents the best opportunity for everyday GISers to enhance their skill set with both hands-on workshops as well as developer/user centric presentations. Very much looking forward to it.

Brian

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