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Thursday, June 29, 2006
Ng: A case of too much ICT
By Wilson Ng
Wired Desktop
Last week was my first, after a long time, to miss an article submission.
We held the InTourPreneur 2006, and there was just too much to do, hence, I didn’t have enough sleep and was too tired to write my weekly column.
While on the subject, and as one of the organizers of the event, let me give you an insider’s view of what happened.
One of the reasons the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), organizer of the Cebu Business Month (CBM), decided to hold the InTourPreneur was to address some constraints that we realized last year.
Some sponsors of the CBM expected the event to continue making waves and gain record-high attendance. But the biggest event we had last year, Cebu ICT (information and communications technology) 2005, was saddled with constraints that made the holding of a similar event difficult.
The Computer Distributors and Dealers Association of the Philippines (Comddap) and the organizers of the most successful ICT events in the country for the last 15 or so years, have a provincial trip every year, and have made the commitment to be here in Cebu every two years. Comddap’s Cebu ICT Expo was also set this month.
Thus, there is this dilemma. Can Cebu handle two huge ICT events in a month? And, of course, the question is, which would happen first?
It was a difficult situation for me since I participate as exhibitor in the Comddap expo practically every year, and the organizers are all good friends of mine.
So we talked and agreed that Comddap would support the Cebu Business Month. We would hold the InTourPreneur and the Comddap expo at the same time, giving neither an advantage. We hoped that by promoting these two events together, we will urge more people outside the city to come and watch events and effectively enlarge our audiences.
Even then, we knew that we still would face the risk of splitting the ICT audience, so we realized that we had to combine the other advocacies of the CCCI—entrepreneurship, franchising, health and wellness, and tourism—into one event so that the whole activity would be less about ICT, and more focused on general business and investment opportunities. Thus, InTourPreneur.
The strategy worked for both sides. Both events garnered the support of nearly all major ICT players, brand names, call centers and dealers, a phenomenon that showcased Cebu as a growing player in technology.
Between the two events, almost every player in ICT company—in the software and hardware sector—participated. Moreover, even before the events took place, major software and hardware companies held various seminars and launchings.
Not only were there over half a dozen seminars weeks before the events, but for the InTourPreneur, sponsors came overflowing with ideas and each of them mounted their own shows.
So last week, we did not only have an ICT Conference, an ICT Jobs Fair, two ICT quiz bowls (one in Comddap and one in InTourPreneur), a Web design contest, we also had separate simultaneous seminars conducted by IBM, HP, Microsoft, APC, Cisco, NEC, Esprint Software, Epson and ComputerWorld.
Certain ICT events did not hit the numbers that we projected, but overall, I consider the two events to be successful. Over 1,300 people attended the four InTourPreneur conferences and seven full-day sponsored seminars. Over 100 participated in and over 2,000 watched the quiz bowls and Web Awards.
At the jobs fair, over 1,600 interviews were conducted. Two companies will be coming back to Cebu from Manila to conduct tests for applicants this week.
A total of over 15,000 people viewed the Comddap and InTourPreneur exhibits. We were both gunning for more, but I believe this combined number still represents a huge increase over any single ICT event participation.
In retrospect, I must admit there was just simply too much ICT going on at the same time, something we will do our best to factor in and probably avoid in the future.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 29, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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