The Torque team ducked out of our workspace for a bit yesterday to attend Telx’s MarketplaceLIVE, a cloud computing conference boasting the tagline “Enhancing Connectivity Through Insight.”
With over 600 registered attendees, the event was put on by leading interconnection and data center provider Telx and held at the beautiful Nob Hill Masonic Center. Dozens of exhibitors from all corners of the cloud computing ecosystem came out to share their visions and interact with their community.
The first booth we walked up to was that of security company Black Lotus, which had the most striking design (white on black instead of the ubiquitous black on white). We were met by three friendly representatives who explained that Black Lotus is a company that protects its clients’ sites against DDoS attacks. Turns out that Black Lotus’s site is actually built on WordPress, so we had quite a bit to chat about.
Another company whose exhibition caught our attention was Zoom, a video conferencing system that enables users to draw notes on a shared image during a conference call. I couldn’t help but think what a great tool it would be for designers—for calls both with their teams, and their clients.
My experience perusing the exhibitions at MarketplaceLIVE—which were, by in large, outside of Torque’s direct area of interest—reiterated how important both a) good design and b) interactivity are for creating stand out booths at tech events.
The Marketplace itself, which took place in a semi-circular hallway wrapped around the auditorium, felt a little crowded. The auditorium, on the other hand, was massive, but only a small percentage of the seats were taken up during the sessions. It seemed like most people were there to network out in the Marketplace, not to attend the sessions. At least that was the case in the afternoon sessions that we attended.
The Afternoon Keynote was with David Kidder, serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Bionic, an enterprise innovation accelerator and platform, and author of The Startup Playbook. His talk was about what is takes to build a successful startup, and he made copies of his book available to all attendees.
The next session was a panel called “Global Networking: Flatter World, Broader Connectivity,” moderated by Anthony Rossabi, SVP Service Provider Markets, Telx, and featuring the following speakers:
Sanjeev Mervana – Sr. Director , Products & Solution Marketing, Cisco Systems
Doug Wills – Marketing Co-Chair and Board Member, CloudEthernet Forum
Will Hughs – Head of Global OTT, Telstra Global Americas
Chris Yetman, Senior Vice President, Operations, Vantage
Victor Haddad, Vice President – Global Carrier Solutions, TATA Communications
Overall, not a bad way to spend a Thursday afternoon in San Francisco. It was fascinating to step out of our WP comfort zone and learn new things about another technology ecosystem.
The experience also made me grateful to be part of our ecosystem, specifically, which I find so interesting, collaborative, and lively.
What was the last non-WordPress tech conference you attended? What was it like?
Michelle Oznowicz is the Managing Editor of Torque. Whether it be directing a short film, planning a unique travel adventure, or pulling together and organizing a community-powered publication, she enjoys rallying a group of people around a common goal.
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