Increased IT industry confidence, and a desire to get
close to the senior IT user community has brought a burgeoning
number of events, seminars, exhibitions, roundtables and
conferences for 2007.
First places in the diary are likely to be those corporate IT
user oriented events that have stood the test of time. These
include two major shipborne conferences.
The first is the IT Directors Forum from 6-9 June on board the
cruise ship Oriana. Some 350 IT
directors from all vertical sectors except financial services will
attend. Its sister event, City IT, is held in November. Limited to
the financial services sector, it attracts upwards of 150 IT
directors.
These conferences are funded by suppliers and involve IT
directors committing to supplier meetings. This formula has been
adopted by other organisations such as Ithaca Business Media, which
runs the Triple i conference, taking place in Silverstone on 23-25
September.
Other notable events include the Communications Management
Association conference in London on 7-8 February; the Healthcare
Computing Conference & Exhibition in Harrogate on 20-22 March;
and Infosecurity Europe, the UK’s largest IT security exhibition
and conference on 24-26 April in London.
The first of Gartner’s European ITxpo conferences takes place in
Barcelona on 20-23 May. The second is in Cannes on 4-8 November.
Forrester Research holds its annual European conference in
Edinburgh on 11-13 June.
Storage Expo, the UK’s largest storage exhibition, takes place in
London on 17-18 October.
There is also a stream of regular events for user member
organisations such as CIO-Connect, the Corporate IT Forum, BCS
Elite, the Computer Weekly 500 Club and the National Computing
Centre.
There are also well established occasions for meeting suppliers.
The Regent Conference (8 February in London) is attended by several
hundred chief executives from suppliers. CeBIT in Hannover on 15-21
March is Europe’s largest business IT and communications
exhibition.
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