For its inaugural Ignite conference in May, an event that combined several other developer conferences into one, Microsoft had an ambitious agenda: By creating a single event that effectively gathered different facets of its developer community under one roof, the tech giant hoped participants would mingle and cross-pollinate their innovations.
“We wanted to look at creating an instance that hit on our IT and developer audience at one time versus a scattering,” said Vivian Eickhoff, Microsoft senior event marketing manager. “It allowed us to showcase the breadth and depth of our products and services.” Customer stories presented to the diverse crew gave them a glimpse of how their respective specialties worked together in the real world.
Microsoft also created numerous opportunities for the varied groups of attendees to interact.
The show floor was designed so that different “silos” within the industry wouldn’t be sequestered in their own corners, and attendees were encouraged to mingle at a show floor welcome reception and ask-the-expert presentations held over the course of the event. “It made it a different way for attendees to figure out how to find things and people,” Eickhoff said.
There were also meet-and-mingle activities held off the show floor. “We piloted mash-ups where, over each of the lunch periods, there was the opportunity for different communities to connect,” Eickhoff said. Microsoft also encouraged nighttime networking with “after hours” held at the conference hotels where attendees could get discounted snacks and drinks and interact.
Previous: #3 Collision
Next: #5 Sapphire Now
