We’ve just announced the Business Communications Strategies Summit. Say that three times in a row really fast! The BCS Summit as we are affectionately calling it in the office will be October 4-5, 2010 in Washington DC at the Fairmont Hotel. The event is produced by the same trustworthy, humorous and intelligent group that has brought you so many VoiceCon events, and the same group that continues to keep No Jitter up-to-date with relevant and exciting news. Yes, folks, that means once again in 2010, you’ll be able to get your fix of Fred Knight and Eric Krapf on stage! Who besides me wants to see them do this?

A new event is both exciting and frustrating. Everything should be approached with a fresh perspective and creative ideas. It’s a fun way to move into summer and I’m looking forward to it - something new is on the horizon. We’re working hard to bring this event together and I hope you’ll check out the program and find it interesting. It will be exclusive as space is very limited; you have to request an invitation to attend. I hope you’ll do so as it is always fun to anticipate something new and we can all look forward to the Business Communications Strategies Summit (phew, deep breath) together. Let us know your thoughts as you review the agenda. We want to hear from you.

The VoiceCon operations team is headed to San Francisco for a visit at Moscone Convention Center. This step in the process ignites the VoiceCon timeline. The “weeks out” calculation gets down to the single digits, working on the weekend becomes the norm again and my lists get very, very long.

This stuff makes me a little happier than it probably should. I can’t help it. It’s the fun part - we get to be creative. How will we design the show and what will everything look like? This is how we make an empty building turn into VoiceCon! How cool is that?

Every VoiceCon is different…
 

What will it look like in San Francisco? 

Of course, nothing compares to the actual event but this is my next favorite part. It’s impressive to watch the team engage and do what they each do best. I’m anxious to see what we create. If you join us in San Francisco, November 2-5 you can see it too.

Check back for some video of “VoiceCon – Behind the Scenes.” I wonder if The Flip camera editing tool has the capability to bleep over audio?

VoiceCon Orlando is a Tradeshow Week 2009 Fastest 50 winner!  Again!

I ran a couple victory laps around the office when we received this news today.  I also invaded personal space and gave some unsolicited hugs.  This is so exciting!  It is the third time VoiceCon has been a Fastest 50 winner; 2005, 2007 and now 2009.

TSW recognizes the fastest 50 growing events each year.  I know people say it is an honor just to be nominated but it is so much better to be a winner! 

I am lucky to be part of VoiceCon.  I’m often reminded of this, but this reminder comes with a trophy and that is the best kind of reminder.  The event team, attendees, speakers, sponsors/exhibitors and vendor partners all contribute to make this an incredible show!

I hope everyone will join us and celebrate this accomplishment.  I will be toasting VoiceCon tonight!

Virtual VoiceCon took place last week on June 10 and, phew…what an experience!  I’m excited and relieved to say it was a success.  We received positive feedback all around and people continue to login to explore and experience the virtual environment. 

As the event day approached I was surprised to find myself getting nervous.  I underestimated how similar the virtual event launch would be to opening day at a live event.  It became especially obvious the morning of, when I transformed into “onsite Crystal” (complete with furrowed brow and bossy behavior).   I did not see that coming, although a couple of the VoiceCon team members claim they saw it coming.

About an hour in, my butterflies faded.  Things were going great and even I started to relax.  We had turned our conference room into a war room, where we camped out with our laptops, listening to webcasts, chatting in booths, searching for people we know.  There were some fire drills but with IM, cell phones and team work we solved problems quickly.  The lesson learned, putting on “live” VoiceCon proved to be very applicable for executing Virtual VoiceCon.  Yay!

I was on Cloud Nine at the end of the day.  I planned to celebrate at home with one (or more) congratulatory drinks.  But, surprisingly, I got home and realized almost instantly that I was exhausted; I felt as if I had just finished a week on show site. I had a virtual VoiceCon hangover.  Again, I did not see that coming.

PS – No need to worry.  I perked up the next day and in the evenings that followed (yes, evenings plural) I have celebrated plenty – with real, not virtual, cocktails.

I’m cleaning up my to-do lists in preparation to be out for vacation next week.  I’m also making my vacation to-do list (I really like to make lists) because I’m not going anywhere — I’m spending the week at home.  A lot of people tsk-tsk at me when I say I’m not going anywhere but I think the at-home vacation is underrated.

I enjoy extended time at home to work on projects and relax.  I need to update the photos in my picture frames, reorganize some drawers, read a few books, finish a jigsaw puzzle (green frog on a green leaf with a green background – what was I thinking?) and re-watch my favorite movies: The Sandlot and The Maltese Falcon.

I’ll try not to think about work but I will.  I get worried when I’m out of the office.  If I’m not here “cracking foxy” (Bogart, The Maltese Falcon) on Fred and Eric, there is a possibility they may get distracted.  They’ll work on projects they like, instead of what comes first on our group VoiceCon to-do list.  So, I’ll rest up on vacation.  Then I’ll be good and ready to do some catch-up “cracking foxy” with our VoiceCon chairmen when I return.

Fast forward to 1:20

Does “I did it!” ever lose its gratification?  It hasn’t yet for me.  A few nights ago, I watched through my kitchen window, a mother with the back of her child’s shirt scrunched up in her hand.  She was running beside a young girl, helping her balance what was quite obviously her very first two-wheeler bike ride — no training wheels.  As they reached the driveway across from my house I heard the young girl exclaim, “I did it!”

It gave me pause and I began to think about some “I did it!” moments in my life that came courtesy of VoiceCon.  Like living through my first VoiceCon – it was in 2003 — when a blizzard almost made us cancel the event.  Or the first time a session drew more people than we had chairs.  The first event in which I trained the whole operations team.  The launch of the VoiceCon Tour, VoiceCon Amsterdam, the attendee party this past VoiceCon Orlando, the list goes on and on.  Wow, I get to say, “I did it!”

Of course, I don’t really do it on my own.  It takes the entire team for VoiceCon to have successes.  But this is my post and the not-so-secret among those that know me is I love to say: “I did it!”

The VoiceCon team is well into the preparation cycle for our upcoming virtual event.  The VoiceCon community is voting with their mouse clicks and the vote is that the virtual event program is of value — registration is very strong.  If you haven’t been able to register yet,  I hope you will.  At the end of day on June 10, you’ll log out of the VoiceCon virtual event with valuable information you won’t get anywhere else.  You can use that information to create another “I did it!” moment in your career.  I’ll be celebrating with you…virtually of course.

We’ve just launched the website for VoiceCon’s first virtual event.  As with any new endeavor, there has been a learning curve.  Some of the planning has been straightforward and we’ve applied the live event format of what we do and how we do it.  However, we are learning through experience the areas of the virtual event that are very different from live events.

The biggest challenge for me has been reining in my desire to brand everything VoiceCon…and I mean everything.  For those of you that have been to a VoiceCon event, you know that if I can stick something to it, hang something over it or build something around it, then that something is going to have the VoiceCon logo.  This past VoiceCon Orlando I took it a step further and branded the people–did anyone see our VoiceCon tattoos?  So in my head virtual VoiceCon is a dream come true and is just like the Tootsie Roll commercial from the ‘70s: “Whatever it is I think I see, becomes a [remove Tootsie Roll reference enter VoiceCon reference] to me.”

As we go through the process, though, I’m learning that there are limitations in the virtual environment too, and as usual, I can’t have everything I want…but I’m still trying.  I hope you’ll visit the VoiceCon Virtual Event website (www.voicecon.com/virtualevents) and register for Transforming the Enterprise with Unified Communications on June 10 to see all the creative things we’ve come up with.