The SIG summit report... straight from the horses mouth - Horses for Sources

There are four reasons why you should attend events…

1) Find out things you didn’t already know;

2) Glean ideas on how to do your job better;

3) Meet people who are actually worth knowing;

4) And (heaven forbid) try and do some business.

If you can achieve a smattering of these elements, you might actually return home thinking “that wasn’t such a waste of time and money, now, was it?”

So we were excited to attend the SIG Summit last week–our first event since we signed our partnership. Esteban Herrera, HfS COO, collected his thoughts on how the SIG Summit compared with typical industry shows. Take it away, Esteban…

The SIG Summit in Review

As you might guess, in the analyst world we attend a lot of industry events, but only last week did I get to attend a SIG summit for the first time, to celebrate and introduce our exciting new partnership. I was absolutely not prepared for what I saw. SIG is a true membership organization, whose members are both serious and proud. The “non-commercial” commitment is honored by all attendees. The summit is fun, but real work gets done.

The differences between the typical outsourcing convention and SIG’s Summits are so stark I had to put them in a table:

Typical Industry Show	SIG Summit
Trade show atmosphere with booths, and untold environmental damage caused by hundreds of thousands of pages of brochures nobody will ever read	No booths, no brochures, no selling. Even the event agenda and information is available as an iPhone App—death to the paper program!
Attendees want business, or a new job	Delegates want knowledge and they like their job
Sessions led by salesmen and publicity-seekers	Sessions led by experts
Attendees skip most sessions because there is so little to learn	Delegates plan on attending almost every session, and are genuinely disappointed about the ones they miss
80% Sellers and 20% buyers. Oh, who am I kidding, its more like 97/3, and the 3% buyers are all there because they are speakers (or looking for a new job)	At least 75% of Delegates were buyers
Sometimes I leave these shows feeling dirty	I left feeling enlightened
Sponsorship is King	Content is King
Inevitably, someone on the conference organizer’s staff has a Charlie Sheen-style meltdown	Dawn Tiura Evans and her world-class staff are composed, helpful and run a simply flawless event
Evenings and networking tend to be—ahem—adult oriented	A family-friendly event through and through
Entertainment consists of seeing which young provider sales person will get drunk enough to put his foot in his mouth first	Entertainment consists of a Brian Olsen painting a portrait of John Lennon to his music in real time (as well as Marilyn, Ray Charles and more…) and then raising over $15,000 for a worthwhile charity by auctioning them off

I have to confess it was fun, also, to have so many delegates approach me about getting their hands on our research, the recently published Latin America report in particular. SIG members now get all our behind-the-firewall research as part of their membership.

Whether you are a buyer or provider of outsourcing services, if you appreciate what we do here at HfS Research, you owe it to yourself to check out a SIG membership as well.

Posted in : Outsourcing Events