As I wind up my travels I wanted to get a blog post out about my trip to ISPCON and Southern Florida.
Monday morning I flew into Chicago and met up with Ian (CEO of FastServers.Net). We proceeded to to Orlando, Florida to visit with current customers, partners, and check out ISPCON!
One of the first stops (after Starbucks) was in Jupiter, Florida to meet with HostNine LLC (www.hostnine.com) a good friend and client. We had the opportunity to tour their office complex and facilities to see what it takes to run a successful web hosting company. After the visit, tour, and lunch we departed with plans to meet up later in Orlando!
As our travels ended for the day we heard the TouchSupport.com execs made a surprise visit and wanted to spend an evening with us. The night ended up being a FastServers, HostNine, TouchSupport, and Register.com evening of insightful conversation on the industry as a whole. Jack Brandt was slated to speak the next day and he talked briefly about his session "The 50-minute MBA: 50 Ideas in 50 Minutes". We heard the next day it went well and people enjoyed the session. After a long day of driving and even a longer night of enjoyment with our industry friends we ended the night prior to sunrise.
This was my first visit to ISPCON and after walking the exhibit floor we ran into a few familiar faces including The WHIR, SWSOFT, TouchSupport (again), Register.Com, and Isabel Wang! The exhibit floor had less vendors then I expected but we heard that the traffic was very focused and pretty good in regards to past ISPCON events.
During the event we also had the great opportunity to meet TOAST.net. We have worked with them in the past, but never had the chance to meet face to face. It's exciting to finally meet business partners, industry experts, and competition at these events and is one of my favorite reasons to attend!
The night ended with a supper including myself, Ian (CEO of Fastservers.Net), David Snead, Isabel Wang, and Jack Brandt eating Italian food and discussing a wide range of industry related topics, technology, and "war stories".
The visit, show, and dinner has resulted in 5 Thoughts, in 5 Minutes! (A mini-version of Jack's session)
1.) Customers read our paper newsletter! It was the first thing our friends from TOAST.net mentioned! You can subscribe via http://www.fastservers.net/newsletter/signup.html, and receive it each month via postal mail!
2.) There is a web hosting provider that utilizes Twitter, check it out - http://twitter.com/memory . I asked the question to Isabel, if any web hosting company utilized Twitter and she immediately shared me with someone that uses it.
3.) We discuss analytics and some of our favorite tools with include www.crazyegg.com, www.robotplay.com, www.clicktale.com, and www.getclicky.com. Stay tuned for a special interview on the “Future of URCHIN ANALYTICS” coming next week.
4.) I shared an interesting white paper from Enquiro, they have just release a great study on B2B buying habits on the web - http://www.enquiro.com/research/whitepapers.asp. It provides a lot of information on B2B search engine use, buying patterns, and is part of a 3 part series that investigates the B2B sector and search engine usage.
5.) Calamari seems to be an accepted appetizer in a survey conducted with 5 web hosting industry leaders.
In just a few short days in Florida I had the chance to experience ISPCON, meet with current clients, and socialize the industry experts making the trip a huge success. Thanks to all I had contact with and I look forward to seeing in July at HostingCon 2007.
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