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Top CIO conferences, according to the CIOs who attend them
CIOs highlight the conferences they prioritize, including Gartner forums, Dreamforce, AI Summit and SC. These events help them learn, network and spot trends.
Many conferences compete for CIOs' time, attention and travel budgets.
Some CIOs prioritize small, invitation-only leadership forums, while others find value in large vendor showcases or industry-specific gatherings. To understand which events earn a spot on the calendar -- and why -- TechTarget asked CIOs, CTOs and other tech leaders a simple question: What is the most important trade show or conference on your calendar? Their answers reveal how priorities shift depending on role, industry and technology strategy.
What is the most important trade show or conference on your calendar?
"I like Gartner's leadership series. Those events are smaller, a little more intimate and not so vendor focused. I balance that with Dreamforce, because our tech stack is based that way. At Dreamforce, I can hear from like-minded customers. We don't necessarily operate as a traditional university, so I can get a sense of how folks across industries are using the same tech we're using."
-- Chris Campbell, CIO, DeVry University
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"When I was at Harley-Davidson, I was working with a lot of startups, and there were some great events in the startup ecosystem. It was like a Shark Tank type of thing. Now, I focus more on industry-centric events where I can meet customers. However, from a tech perspective, it's AWS, because they're leading the market. We're a heavy consumer, and they just keep coming up with cool innovations."
-- Sean McCormack, CIO, First Student
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"I get the most value out of Gartner's CIO Summit. I can learn from others in my position and industry. Learning from your peers is key because companies are going to be at different adoption rates, and you can understand what your peers are doing and leapfrog where things are at, especially if you're open to change."
-- Russ Ahlers, CIO, BDO USA
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"We work a lot with the banking industry, so there are industry events, such as Financial Brand Forum, where I spend a lot of time. On a broader level, The AI Summit New York is really good. Also, GITEX in Dubai is the biggest technology conference globally. They have 200,000 people. It's just so massive that you have to be there."
-- Andie Dovgan, chief growth officer, Creatio
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"SC, or the Supercomputing Conference. It's a broad conference that brings together people from government, academia and private industry and showcases a wide range of possibilities. Yes, supercompute has a very specific definition -- it usually works with petabytes, or more, of data -- which is these enormous problems. But all the stuff at SC is applicable to large and midsize businesses.
It's a great way to learn where the industry is now and where it's going, and to connect with people who might be difficult to reach from a cold call perspective."
-- Sebastien Jean, chief technology officer, Phison US
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"I don't go to many trade shows or conferences, but the ones I do attend are thought-leader events that offer high-protein, future-looking trends backed by research. These help me anticipate what's coming down the line in two or three years. A CIO versus an IT manager must have a strategic outlook on trends, where to place their bets and where technologies are moving."
-- Joe Locandro, CIO, Rimini Street
Tim Murphy is site editor for Informa TechTarget's IT Strategy group.
