The 2011 Palo Alto storage event was a great success. Thanks to the 140 CEOs, VPs and senior industry insiders for taking time to conduct business deals, talk with press, analysts, venture capitalists, investment bankers, consultants, and even a handful of executive job-seekers. There was something for everyone that participated….
A few notes about the event:
** Ed Walsh, of the Avamar/Virtual Iron/Storwize selling fame, did an outstanding job kicking off the event. He let the audience know some of his tricks and tips for righting a company that may be a bit sideways, and then preparing it to be sold to the highest bidder. Great job, Ed and thank you very much. Remember, Ed tells us – keep smiling……life is too short for anything else.
** Our keynotes from John Thompson (CEO of Virtual Instruments and Chairman of the Board for Symantec) and Ed Bugnion (CTO for Cisco) were also excellent and informative. Both had a cloud and virtualization bent, which was especially beneficial for our mostly storage-focused group.
** A highlight of the event continues to be the marketing and business development roundtable discussions – a less formal way of sharing information, ideas and success/failure stories as told by your peers. All the feedback coming in says that we should expand this concept and spend more time with these type of forums. Your wish is my command, so please keep an eye out for our future events in 2011.
** The ExecEvent released its ExecLink matchmaking application just before this event. It allows attendees to find other attendees based on search criteria, then connect with a person before the event to set up a meeting. It’s a 1.0 application – and I’m looking for feedback from our users about what they liked, didn’t like, improvements, etc.
** This event had a lot of focus around VCs and tips for executives to get the most out of meeting with them. I found the information very valuable, since I spend a lot of time with smaller, startup-type companies who might need a VC cash infusion. Obviously, not all of our attendees fit in that bucket, but the networking alone with our VC friends (Valhalla, Highland Capital, Jafco, Lightspeed, Intel Capital and Mission Ventures) was worth the price of admission for many.
** Thank you to all our speakers, panelists, roundtable hosts, staff and helpers for making this the best event we’ve ever done. We’re always looking to improve, so feel free to send any comments or feedback our way.
I’m actively working on more events for 2011, so stay tuned for some announcements. Think Boston in June for right now………
Greg
