To understand what we envision for the Communications vNext Summit, we should start with where we began. Comms vNext, the adopted short-hand version of the conference name, came about shortly after Ignite 2017. Josh Blalock, who had never been to the legendary Lync Conference, began to observe a common theme in the #Skype4B Twitterverse: many colleagues where longing for the days of Lync Conference – a conference centered around only the applications and technologies that were common amongst the Lync and Skype for Business crowd.
The timeframe of these observations also lined up with the successful completion of another UCDayUK conference in the UK – a community-led conference centered on Office 365, attracting participants from all over Europe. Clearly, participants craved a conference that was dialed into the technologies they cared about, in a more focused and concentrated atmosphere than some of the bigger conferences, like Ignite.
It was settled. This was going to happen! Josh reached out to fellow MVP Jonathan McKinney for a sanity check, thoughts, and guidance. Once they both decided they were crazy enough to undertake such a venture, they realized they needed just a couple more crazy MVPs to round things out and get it launched, bringing Adam Ball and Pat Richard into the fold. Shortly thereafter, the Comms vNext team was born!
Our vision for the Comms vNext Conference is organic growth each and every year, and to be a place where the community can meet, connect and share information and ideas.
We are always on the lookout for how to deliver unique value to each and every person that is at the Comms vNext conference, whether they are a Sponsor or an Attendee. Our driving passion is to bring back that magic of the dedicated conference feel that we fell in love with at Lync Conference in San Diego and Las Vegas.
Each year, we hope to expand the conference. In 2019 we are introducing multi-day and a larger venue, with the capacity to host a much larger attendee base. We also will have a dedicated exhibit hall with more sponsor opportunities available.
Now… this is where YOU come in! How can you help us, you ask? (How kind of you!)