K2 just sponsored SPSINDY, and I spoke as well. Both from a sponsorship as well as a Speaker perspective SPSINDY was easily one of the best SharePoint Saturday event’s I have participated in. 

It was obvious to me as well as the other sponsors that sponsors were a significant consideration in the planning.   While I completely understand that these events are "for the community"  the way in which SPSINDY was run, showed so well to the K2 people I brought with will help me continue to expand our participation and sponsorship of future events.

Some key points I wanted to share.

1. Timing: 

The planning, and communication with sponsors/speakers. Happened well in advance.  This helped me with communications internally as well as for planning of resources, shipping, travel, event promotion etc.  Timing and amounts of advanced notice is a significant help to those speaking and sponsoring. 

2.  Communication: 

Both as a speaker, and as a sponsor we were regularly kept in the loop as to logistics, task actions required, next steps etc.  This helped dramatically with having confidence in our participation, helped us know what to expect and what we needed to do. 

3.  Sponsor participation:

Obviously I come at this from a different angle, but This is HUGE.  At the very beginning of the day, during the intro/keynote. Rob Bogue called out each of the sponsors, and introduced them, gave each one 3 minutes or so to introduce themselves, invite people out to the booths etc. This alone to my team that was there made the sponsorship investment worth it, and caused them to glow with what a great deal this was.

Booth placement was PERFECT.  They were placed by registration, near the primary areas where people networked, got food etc.  This increased attendee traffic to at least be near the booths, and thus making it easy for them to just stop by and chat.  While many attendees may not have any interest in this.  The placement may have pushed that one over the edge to stop by a booth and discuss offerings.  Thus possibly resulting in a good conversation.  Which obviously from a selfish sponsor perspective is making the investment well worth it. From an attendee perspective they COULD avoid the sponsors – but it was made easy and comfortable for them to not do this.

4.  Speaker dinner: 

Best speaker dinner i have been to, event was casual, well organized and VERY generous.  I genuinely felt rewarded. No expense was spared.  GREAT work

5. Event meals:

Event meals were great, breakfast was the best i have seen to date.  Overheard several others also mention that they were impressed with what was provided.  In addition to just the food itself.  The atmosphere and accommodations allowed for good networking and made for a good conversation environment.  It seems as though they thought of everything in this area.

6.  Sponsor investment options.

At first i did not really like the idea of just handing over sponsorship and not tying it to a specific item. But after really giving it some thought and talking to some others who have run SPS events I really think that this is the way to do it.  No more sponsors fighting about who gave more thus who gets more etc.  I really think that this could work very well.  I understand that some sponsors may rather pay less due to budget reasons but if the other above suggestions to add value to sponsors is followed, I am positive that no one will question the value of the investment.

7. Speaker “Logistics”

Sessions were well organized, all rooms were well laid out etc.  One very nice touch was they had a “time cop” in the back of the room in each session that would hold up a card at 10 minutes to go, then 5 minutes to go, in order to try to keep things on track.

Ok enough glowing and raving.  There was one bad thing.  This is a technical crowd, and a technical crowd going an entire day without “Mtn. Dew” is just plain dangerous.

So a call to action.  I really think that writing up some best practices, what different venues are experiencing, taking some feedback and providing that to those who are looking to run SPS events will be TREMENDOUSLY helpful.  So if you have run, spoken at or attended a SharePoint Saturday, tell us what worked, what did not etc.