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The Amtower B2G Market Report Volume 3, #44, November 15, 2004 This newsletter is only sent to those who request it. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.FederalDirect.net and if you like this newsletter, please pass it along to your colleagues. To unsubscribe, see directions below. The newsletter is posted each Monday at www.FederalDirect.net, and the latest “Off-Center Observations” is on the home page. All back issues available at http://www.federaldirect.net/newsletterarchives.html) AMTOWER OFF-CENTER OBSERVATIONS Part of my mission with the Amtower B2G Market Report is to offer my view of what is both good and bad in our market, and to identify what causes clutter and confusion. Much of what I write about is brought to my attention by the people who read this, and I need to thank you. This newsletter is growing in large part because I am able to say out loud what many are already thinking. For instance, at present, there are too many events, too much email, way to much adjectival posturing, and maybe, soon, too many publications. If you are out and about at the various holiday receptions, look for me. As always, I will be the man in black. Thanks for reading this, and thanks for all the suggestions, questions, comments and occasional corrections. Read on! Item: I did attend the ENC breakfast on November 9 at the Tower Club, and it was well worth the time. Panelists Steve Toole (Input), Aaron Heffron (Market Connections) and Eva Neumann (ENC Marketing) provided a good look at what is available for Federal marketers. Audience participation and moderator Scott Lewis kept things moving very well. The next ENC Marketing breakfast is on December 15. Amtower & Company is now a sponsor of these. Rather than re-start the Government Marketing Forum (a breakfast series sponsored by several companies in 2001—2003), some of us have decided to support this venue. It is well worth your time. Item: My negative commentary on the VAR Business/Government VAR list of the alleged “top 100” did not stop Phacil (think facile) from putting a plug at its web site referring its listing at #92 on said list. If anyone sees other references to the Government VAR list, please keep me informed. I may have to come up with a top 100 list of my own. Any ideas? Maybe a mystery list – I publish it and you guess what it is. Item: On November 3, I received an email from Government Executive with the subject line reading “Early Bird Extended for Excellence in Government West!” When we see an early-bird extension, it usually means registration is not good. Too many events? Read on. Item: PostNewsweek Tech announced “a new quarterly publication for government managers. Government Leader, which debuts in March 2005, will reach 70,000 executives in federal and state government, and in the government contractor community. It will serve leaders, both career and political, in program management, human resources, finance, information technology and acquisition, including 13,000 members of the Federal Managers Association.” That is a fair amount of editorial ground to cover on a quarterly basis. Too many publications? Perhaps we are beyond the saturation point, especially with ads dollars still being tight. The Amtower Off-White Papers 20 and 22 deal with “Publication Mania”. If you haven’t read them, they are vintage Amtower. http://www.federaldirect.net/offwhitepapers.html, and the Papers are germane to this. Item: Immediately following the email announcement of Government Leadership, I got another one from PostNewsweek Tech announcing, “Government Computer News will launch four new conferences in 2005 designed to help government IT and program managers better understand the technologies they depend on to accomplish their agency missions…Content of the each two-day conferences is being crafted by teams of government and industry subject experts, joined by GCN's award-winning editorial staff…Conferences will take place in Washington, D.C. according to the following schedule…Cyber security: March 8-9. …Wireless: June 7-8….Data management and storage: October 11-12….Enterprise architecture, applications, lines of business: November 8-9. …To a greater extent than any other series of conferences aimed at the federal market, the GCN Conferences directly address the need for technology and technology risk assessment information, according to Thomas R. Temin, editor-in-chief at PostNewsweek Tech Media, which publishes GCN and will produce and market the events.” Are these under-served topic areas for conferences? Do we really need more events? I think not. This looks similar to the e-Gov Institute line-up which looks like the Digital Government Institute line-up, which looks like the Federal Business Council line-up. More than a few heavy advertising spenders have emailed me regarding heavy duplication of these events, and some of us will be having a series of meetings to discuss this matter. Attention publication/event producers – there are limited ad dollars for 2005 – you are going to the well too often. Not that I have an opinion.
As if the PostNewsWeek Tech announcements weren’t enough, arriving in my email box November 9 were four messages announcing four more events. Two of these claimed the same space – the “best” in Homeland Security events. The subject line for the first was “Registration Open for 5th Homeland Security Conference”, followed by this opening line: “Attend the most trusted Homeland Security conference serving the Government IT community.” The email was from “Industry Scoop”, but the subject matter turned out to be from Federal Computer Week. It occurs to me that more people would open email from FCW than “Industry Scoop”. I wager the “open” rate on that email was light. Who the heck is Industry Scoop? What industry do they “scoop”? 2 NSA events coming up in early December, on site at NSA. www.fbcinc.com Amtower comment: I will be attending some of the Input events over the next few months and I will write about them. One comment I should have made when I ran the unedited comments was this: One of the main values of events is the networking opportunity. In many instances, these can be more beneficial than the sessions. As always, your comments, questions and suggestions are welcome. Thanks The Amtower B2G Market Report is published by Amtower & Company, and is written for companies targeting the government marketplace. The opinions expressed are those of Mark Amtower unless otherwise noted. Contact us at Amtower & Company, PO Box 314, Highland, MD 20777-0314 (301-924-0058). This material is copyrighted and may not be duplicated, reprinted or otherwise replicated without written permission of the publisher. Email subscriptions are free by request: sign up at www.FederalDirect.net |
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