The Avature Conference as Experienced by a First-Time Attendee

In the last five years or so, I’ve attended in the neighborhood of 35 to 40 conferences. These include events of all sizes, formats, and subjects in at least six countries that I can remember. I’ve attended everything from small 10-person conferences to large conferences like SHRM, WebSummit, SXSW, and the 160,000 attendee behemoth Dreamforce. I’ve been to conferences that had only coffee and grocery store cookies as refreshments, and I’ve been events where the food was on par with Michelin Star restaurants and the entertainment included the likes of Kelly Clarkson, Stevie Wonder, The Foo Fighters, and U2, to namedrop a few. However, the size of the conference doesn’t necessarily directly reflect the quality of the content and value I walked away with.

In March I attended my first Avature Conference with just over 300 attendees, and I was completely blown away. I joined the Avature team last July and have been hearing about the conference ever since. Believe me, whatever I’d heard leading up to the week in Miami didn’t prepare me for my time there with our geographically dispersed internal team and external attendees. Read more...