930Gov and the End of FY 2018

The 6th annual 930Gov Conference is coming August 28 at the Washington DC Convention Center.

930Gov has five technology-focused tracks, each important to every federal agency:

- Cyber and IT Security
- Records Management
- Government Customer Experience
- Knowledge, Information and Data Management
- IT Modernization

Mike Smoyer, President of the Digital Government Institute, which produces 930Gov, has a history of being involved with successful GovCon events going back to his days at National Trade Productions, producers of FOSE, and later, FedMicro, the mid-summer end-of-FY event that ran in the early and mid 1990s.

When Mike took over the Digital Government Institute in 2007, DGI was producing some very focused IT events for the GovCon market.

While DGI still does the single-tech focused events, each of which evolves as the technology evolves, he saw the need for that end-of-FY, DC-based multi-track tech focused event.

930Gov will attract somewhere around 1,200 federal technologists, most of whom are in charge of managing and deploying technologies in their respective agencies.

I have been recommending this event to my clients for four of the past five years, and I do so again this year. I could not recommend the event in year one because it had no track record. I told Mike that at the time, but I also told him I felt his instincts were correct in starting an end-of-FY event.

There is a simple reason for my annual recommendation: end-of-FY has always represented a significant spending spike and not all of the money available is queued into a pre-determined slot. While this is not the only reason for my recommendation, it is a major factor.

An equally important reason would be the networking and the ability to begin relationships with key feds and perhaps other contractors.

Since year two, my clients have been pleased with the results. While there are not tens of thousands of attenders, neither are there hundreds of exhibitors. The exhibitors are all tabletop, with no mega-booth dominating the show floor. This makes it a level playing field for the smaller companies in the exhibit hall.

With 1,200 or so attenders and fewer exhibitors, the likelihood of exhibitors getting face time with attenders is very real.

Two former and two current clients will be exhibiting and two other clients will be attending and I am looking forward to their feedback. One of these companies is back for at least their third year in a row.

I will be speaking at 930Gov, although not in one of the tech tracks. I will be addressing the importance of building and leveraging a subject matter expert position in the market, this in a conference where the speakers are subject matter experts and front line managers of  some key technologies.

I am very much looking forward to the 2018 version of 930Gov.

I hope to see you there and I welcome your feedback on the event.