A year ago over the space of one month, ARN publisher and president, Susan Searle, had requests from three A/NZ marketing managers to host a destination conference for the trans-Tasman channel.
The common voice was that channel conferences were great but that regional conferences lacked focus and market significance for Australia and New Zealand’s channel players. So she set off on a journey that culminated in the launch of EDGE, a vendor agnostic industry conference which will be hosted by ARN and our NZ channel brand, Reseller News, in July 2015.
It is the result of 10 months of research, focus groups, site inspections, developing content streams, formulating a sponsor and co-host model, and customising the EDGE app to streamline the networking and one-to-one meeting process.
The dates are July 20-23 and the venue is beautiful Port Douglas in Northern Queensland And interest is high! There are currently 16 sponsors on board including SAP, VMWare, Huawei, Microsoft, HP, Toshiba, Barracuda Networks, Webroot, APC , Acronis, NEXTDC, Shoretel, Storagecraft, Kaseya, EMC and Fujitsu.
Co-hosts are Distribution Central, DPSA, Exclusive Networks, Ingram Micro, Westcon, Rhipe, and NEXTGEN.
Visit the website where you can see the agenda, reasons to attend, sponsorship details and more. EDGE will host 150++ channel professionals over a four-day, three-night conference. One hundred plus of those attendees will be C-level reseller partners and the agenda is based around excellent content and business networking.
CHANNEL LEADERSHIP
The theme of EDGE is channel leadership and that doesn’t just mean in the HR sense. We are talking leadership at all levels: How do you become a market leader in the segment in which you play? What is effective management leadership? How to achieve business leadership and success in a time of transformation within the industry.
EDGE will feature both non-IT and IT leaders who will talk about leading from the front, about thought leadership and vision, about how they arrived at the position they now hold. The formal networking will be organised through one-on-one meetings scheduled via the personalised EDGE app.
And, of course, there will be plenty of time for informal networking during breaks, over coffee at the lagoon, drinks on the beach and splendid dinners.
There’s more! Golf! Could we have a conference without this channel favourite! The Sheraton Mirage hotel at Port Douglas is built around a classic, recently refurbished, golf course where ARN and RN NZ will host the EDGE Cup. And there are alternative activities planned for the non-golfers.
EDGE is about your place in the industry now. It is about being the journey many of you are currently undertaking as you restate your places and plays in this rapidly changing ICT industry. It is here and now because we understand that our audience’s information needs are evolving and changing. Our marketing partners want new ways of reaching channel partners so we need to collaborate and present these new options.
If you need more information about EDGE beyond what is available on the website then please contact the ARN team headed by Susan Searle (susan_searle@idg.com.au) and our events manager, Alexandra West (Alexandra_West@idg.com.au). Of course, the entire editorial and sales teams can also help with you any queries so feel free to chat with us about EDGE whenever we see or talk to you.
