 Before you go, I am your host, Jamie Scotto-Cotaia, CEO and founder of JSA. Know Before You Go is your show that covers everything attendees must have on their radar, from insider talking points to conference logistics, everything in between, before attending that next big industry event. And today, talking about big events, we're all about DCD Connect New York. I'm joined by Dan Loosmore, CEO of Data Center Dynamics, to share some tips on how attendees can make the most of this year's DCD Connect New York. Welcome, Dan. Thank you very much for having me, and big thanks to JSA for the continued partnership on the Connect series. I know we've been doing this for 18 months or so now, and hopefully your clients and your viewers, you can benefit from free passes, as you know, to the Connect program. So, we really value you guys, I know you're playing an ever-increasing role in the industry and appreciate the support with this. Thank you so much. Yes, we're loving the partnership, and we're loving your events. What incredible opportunity to network, to educate, to collaborate that you guys bring to our Data Center community. So let's start there. What types of companies and attendees are the best fit for your conference? And what are they going to gain from attending? Yeah, great question. Look, I think you're absolutely right. The education, the collaboration, the networking, it's always, I think historically, been the cornerstone of at least good events, right? You want to be able to tick off those three things, and I think that's probably always been the case, and it's probably the case for a lot of the events that you guys seem to be at every week. I don't know how you do it. I think what's most interesting to us with the Connect series in particular is actually responding to a couple of trends. Firstly, in terms of the B2B buyer journey and the way that buyers are purchasing technology, it's multi-channel, it's always on. I read some interesting statistics recently that actually 94% of that B2B buyer journey is now done before even speaking to a vendor, and 64% of buyers, this is the latest Gartner report, actually have a solution in mind even before they're in market, before the IFPs released. And of those 64%, 90% end up purchasing from that preferred vendor at the top. So I think for new technology providers, for our event sponsors in New York, for our exhibitors, what we're really trying to do with the series is actually create an environment that helps informed decision-making, not simply reinforced decision-making. I know there's an increasing amount of them from our industry, and you can go and, exactly as she said, collaborate and network. But what we're trying to do with the Connect series in particular is actually try and involve ourselves at a slightly different stage of those buying cycles, so that we're creating an environment for information gathering, for real influence of that buyer journey. How are we doing that? We're using behavioural data, we're using our first-party data that we have as a publisher and as an L&D provider, to really try and personalise attendee programmes, to really try and create a bit of a more dynamic networking experience, and this will be the second period now, four years out of the pandemic, and everyone's got their own use to a subscription economy, everyone's working Netflix, everyone's on Amazon Prime, we're used to having a high level of personalisation in our day-to-day lives, and I think, eventually, it all should have a background. So we're taking all of our behavioural data to become personalised in every attendee's programme, so that they're getting the turn on time out of office, in a way that you may not get a more normal, common trade show, so I'm talking about things like programming according to procurement habits, programming according to interests, so you guys know from being with us before, we take a lot of emphasis on things like structured lunches, structured debates, workshops, created to every attendee's RFP needs, and so you're really, for the attendee, you're personalising that experience, you're giving really information that enables them to do their day-to-day job better, and for the sponsor, for the supporters, that's our model, we're hopefully providing them with very, very high intent new leads and new relationships, so that's what I'm really most excited about, and in terms of who it's for, like all of our events, we're trying to help individuals who are planning, designing, building or operating next-gen digital infrastructure, and that could be, they could be doing that for their enterprises and looking at on-prem deployments, they could be doing that within their catering provider or the hyperscales. New York's are really interesting markets, sometimes forgotten about actually with the bus on Virginia, New York, sometimes forgotten about, but still plays a really key role in the US data centre industry, not only for the sort of traditional FS enterprise deployments, but actually in terms of the engineering companies that are still HQed in New York, and the role that they play, particularly at the moment with the supply chain, we'll have just heard in the trends at the top of this episode, the supply chain still influx, it's increasingly important role there, AI, we have Dell come out just this week and say that actually that AI trend would see some deployments move back to enterprise, so New York's going to have a really interesting role in the next few years, so anyone who meets that profile, design, build, operate, supply, they're going to be right at home at the conference in the next couple of weeks. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I started my data centre career in New York City at 60 Hudson Street, so when you talk about hubs, global hubs, gateways for Europe, for trans continent conversations and communications, for going north, south, at any which direction, New York is definitely one of the major hubs of the world, and again, tying in these personalization, the programming that's unique for our industry, for our buyers, and with that AI Dell announcement, sort of playing as the backdrop, what a great time for this event, this is so topical. Okay, so I am at home, prepping for that big plane, getting over to New York, what should be the top items that I need to do to prepare for DCD Connect New York? Yeah, great question, and again, I risk sounding like many of my colleagues and competitors are all friendly here, with some of this advice, so I'll try and avoid some of the more obvious bits. There's a few new things we're doing in New York this year, so I'll try and lean on that a little bit. We're actually up to only 500 registrations, so quite clearly, when you start getting to that volume of VIP on site, you're going to want to plan your networking a little bit, do go on the event platform, do download it, DCD Connect app, or indeed visit the website, datacentodynamics.com, you've got the full attendee list on there, you've got all of the sessions, whether that's the sort of more networking heavy sessions, and the luncheers, the dinners, the wine tastings, and that sort of experiential layer that we try and put in, or whether that's the traditional keynotes and panels, just again, to personalise to your own preference. Do get on the platform, do send out invitations to Connect. If you've been to the venue, you know, it's a sort of huge, sprawling venue with ballrooms on different levels, so it's going to be hard if you're not pre-planning to drive ROI. I think we had something like 18,000 meeting requests through the platform in last year's edition, so again, if you're not actively using it, you're sort of behind your competitors before you even got on the plane, and it's free, it doesn't cost anything. Use it, take advantage of it. We've got the investment forum launching for the first time, so again, if you're not familiar with it, do go on, check out the agenda, get to grips with that. It's brand new, obviously with the amount of M&A, again, referenced in the trends. We've brought that programme into the event. We are doing specific networking for GenSedas for the first time, so again, talking about trends, one of actually the trends in events generally is it was the first time ever in 2023 that you had more millennials and GenSedas attending conferences than you did Boomers, which in our industry with our workforce challenges is probably a positive step, perhaps, but sometimes events do very little to actually encourage peer networking. We're so focused on the buy-sell that actually I've just been guilty of talking about as well, that you actually lose some of that peer exchange, and so we've got particular sessions for GenSedas this year, lots of different things, wine making, cocktail hours, happy hours, and we've also got next generation workforce sessions, so we've partnered up with the guys at Infrastructure Masons, who I know JSA know pretty well, with the Nomad Futurist team, Nabil and Phil, who are brilliant as well, and we're putting on specific sessions across the two days for either new career entrants or actually individuals from colleges and high schools who aren't even in the industry yet, because we appreciate we've got to do a better job at attracting next-gen talent, so there's lots going on across the two days, including some of those new programmes, whether that's DEI-type initiatives or just better programming. I think that's a real key point with future events actually, you know, as I say, probably not that much focus on peer exchange, and actually at a time when people are in the office less, we're working remotely today as we're chatting across this hangout, the board's cooler conversations kind of disappear a little bit, and so individuals are also using events to try and capture some of that, try and replicate some of those, maybe what would have happened in the office with 10, 15 years ago, so we try and incorporate as much room for peer exchange as well as that buy-sell exchange, so we've got things outside of your normal keynotes, like we're doing a 5k run the morning of the event for those who want to network in that way, we've got some private yoga sessions going on, so there's all sorts of mechanisms for peer exchange, I'll probably be in the happy hour on rather than the 5k run, but nonetheless the idea is that it's all in the name, we really are trying to connect people, be it buyers and sellers, obviously important in terms of ROI and justifying the trip, or indeed just expanding your peer network and looking at your next career opportunity, so hopefully we're achieving both of those things. I love this, it's so innovative how you're approaching the concept of really just peer engagement, at a time when the other night I went to sit on the couch with my husband, we just put the baby to bed, we're like adult time, and he put on these goggles and I'm like what do I do, do I just sit here next to him, do I pour myself a glass, I don't even know, I feel like I'm really big between us, but technology takes us away from this peer-to-peer engagement, which is, as you mentioned, just rare now, so we need to maximize, take advantage of these incredible event offerings, I mean you had wine tasting, never mind the 5k run, the yoga, and of course that next-gen gatherings that you guys are doing with iMason's and Nomad Futurist, both partners of ours that we adore, so an unbelievable job, okay, but I want to say one question specifically for you, what do we do post-show? We just came back from this incredible experience, how do we keep it moving forward? Great, great question, and I think increasingly when people are analyzing their marketing spend or all their BD spend, if you're coming us and attending, it's difficult, it's hard to attribute, right, particularly in our industry when you've got such long buying cycles, you could be 18 months until you can recognize a deal or a new partnership or whatever it was that happened over those two days, so I'd say it's important to keep the content coming, and we're seeing a trend in media and tech generally of a shift from quite heavy-demand capture emphasis to demand creation emphasis, and actually how are you creating that demand? Well, if you're spending two days listening to industry leaders, I think we've got something like 200 speakers programmed in New York, so there's going to be plenty of industry leaders there, you've really got to try and take those learnings and think about the core content model. Actually, how are you demonstrating whether it's as an attendee, your own thought leadership, or as a sponsor, how are you packaging up some of those lessons learned, so can it be turned into a blog post, an article on things to consider, a video, just like we're doing right now, a bit of video content, so these are all things that JSA obviously know well as a partner and as a PR supporter for the industry, but it's really utilizing some of those learnings to remark it, repackage. Again, without going statistic mad on this episode, 99% of those purchase decisions are influenced by content that they've read over the course of that buyer journey, so don't just stop at the event, don't just stop at the workshop, or the wine tasting, or the panel, or whatever it is, how are we repackaging that, how are we repurposing it, how are we using it again to influence buyer, sort of influence peer groups about a decision that you want to make about the show, it's all about how we're doing that, and it's an increasingly competitive market, there's new start-ups all the time, should have mentioned, we've got a new start-up saying at the event as well, so I think we've got three or so start-ups with us this year, we've got Bill Clayman who you know sort of emceeing it all with his usual effervescent energy that he brings to the start-up stage, so I think it's just really thinking about that content creation piece and how we keep that story going. Yeah, absolutely, you know at DCD Connect New York, that's where relationships can spark, where you can meet new people, not just talk to the same folks that are already on your email list or your LinkedIn gatherings, you really can create those relationships and then post-event, the onus is really how to nurture them, how to carry them forward, how to engage in a different more daily activities even when you're back at home, so thank you so much for all that you do, Dan, for this industry. Thank you, thank you for supporting and I look forward to catching up with you guys in New York, I think you're on the show floor with us in fact with your own studio again, so again, core content, get yourselves to the JSA studio, record some videos, start influencing these buyers, yeah, forward to seeing you there. Thank you so much, Dan, what a pleasure. All right guys, to get all those details to prepare for DCD Connect, you heard Dan, go ahead and visit datacenterdynamics.com, that's right over my shoulder, that registration link, go ahead and splash away here, and during the conference week, you want to use that hashtag, DCD Connect New York. In the meantime, thank you for following JSA on LinkedIn, and you can also check out jsa.net for more. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Know Before You Go, and