The second-ever Prestige Conference — a conference focused solely around business and career development in the digital space — is scheduled for February 27-28, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. This article discusses the thought process behind the laser-focused event and sheds light on future plans to offer even more new content and learning.
The inspiration.
For Prestige’s Founders Josh Broton and Kiko Doran, the inspiration for the conference came after years of attending, organizing, and speaking at WordCamps.
“Both Josh Broton and I have an extensive history with the event circuit, and one thing we heard over and over was that people within the community wanted to learn more about business, but WordCamp just wasn’t the place to get in-depth with those types of discussion,” Doran told Torque in an interview.
“Both Josh Broton and I have an extensive history with the event circuit, and one thing we heard over and over was that people within the community wanted to learn more about business, but WordCamp just wasn’t the place to get in-depth with those types of discussion,” Doran told Torque in an interview.Prestige affords the opportunity for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and business owners to come together to network and interact with one another.
The conference also features talks from successful business owners across the digital marketplace, which are useful for professionals looking to take their businesses and careers to the next level.
“As an entrepreneur myself, I know the value of career development and business education workshops,” Doran said.
“There are other general business conferences out there, but none tailored specifically to the needs of those of us operating in the digital marketplace, especially no conferences geared towards the unique challenges and opportunities for those inside the WordPress ecosystem.”
Doran discussed how He and Broton started Prestige with the idea of planning a business conference they both wanted to attend.
“We had business role models within the WordPress community we looked up to, so we invited them to come speak and share their knowledge and experience with our attendees.
There are many, many success stories you hear every day of businesses knocking it out of the park with digital products and services. Prestige goes behind-the-scenes of those success stories so our attendees can learn directly from the people that built those businesses into what they are today.”
Laser focus.
With a growing and diversifying WordPress community, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that targeted conferences have been gaining traction. The recent success of WooConf, a conference solely revolving around eCommerce, and the growing anticipation for LoopConf, a developer-centric conference, are just a few great examples.
The 2014 State of the Word highlighted the obvious need for an event focused around business and career development, indicating roughly 25% of survey respondents make a full-time living using WordPress. And Prestige aims to meet those needs.
“With our current speaker lineup, yes, this [Prestige] is a niche WordPress conference,” Doran said.
“If you’re going to attend a business conference, you want to hear speakers that get what you’re working on, right? Our speakers are successful WordPress business leaders. You can’t get much more niche than that.
Going forward, we’ll definitely continue to invite WordPress thought leaders to speak at our events. But we’ll also start including speakers from other areas. We want to continuously add value for our attendees, and we feel that by diversifying our speakers and sessions, we’ll be able to offer new content and learning at each event.”
Despite Prestige’s specificity, however the conference draws in a range of different attendees and speakers all looking to hone very specific skills of career and business development.
“The great thing about it, though, is that we’re talking business, so the learning you get at Prestige can be applied to a variety of companies and industries,” Doran said.
“At our Minneapolis event, we had attendees ranging from independent WordPress developers and designers to media professionals and public speakers.”
Moving forward.
In the future, Prestige will take steps to further benefit their audience by bringing in new speakers.
“Our speakers so far have been big names in the WordPress world, but their sessions focus on business strategies and practices that can be applied to all types of freelancers, small shops, and entrepreneurs operating in the digital marketplace.
As we continue to host these events throughout 2015, we plan to bring in speakers from different areas of expertise to further benefit our audience.”
This strategy will hopefully expand the reach of Prestige, and help create an even more valuable experience.
In regards to the next Prestige Conference, Doran highlighted its anticipated success:
“We have a really stellar lineup for Las Vegas, so we have no reason to doubt our ability to pull off a successful sophomore event. Plus, we’re having the conference at the Innevation Center, which is part of the Vegas Tech hub of activity.
Pairing the thriving Vegas startup community with Prestige is a recipe for a win in our book, and we can’t wait to kick it off.”
About Prestige Conference.
Prestige conference is an event focused around business and career development in the digital marketplace. The conference made its debut in October in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Semi-early bird tickets for the next Prestige Conference, scheduled for February 27-28 in Las Vegas, are currently on sale for $149 — a deal valid through January 23.
After this date, Standard Registration tickets will go on sale for $199. The conference has been limited to 150 attendees to maximize engagement between attendees and speakers.
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