27 October, 2007

"Send in the trannies!"


Sadly I never did quite get the opportunity to say that line ... even though I'd been wondering how else to introduce Simon's Cabaret to our room full of public sector leaders. But we all managed to have a great time in any case.


In the end the elephant was friendly, and the trannies weren't overly so - so I think we had the balance just about right. As for the government officials and solutions providers - well I think they had a good time, but you should judge for yourself from the photos.

Three days of networking, 11 plenary sessions, 102 government officials, 14 sponsors, 9 Government Technology Award winners, 212 Government Technology Award nominees, a spot of karaoke, that baby elephant, and those men in women's clothes = just another great conference from the boys and girls at Alphabet.















































































































16 October, 2007

A new Dawn


Dawn's boyfriend has definitely spoilt the market for the rest of us. Bernard made sure that our new Research Director's first day was greeted with balloons, chocolates (Ferrero Rocher, no less) and flowers.

Other than showing up our Neanderthal ways, Dawn has been brought on board to manage Alphabet's burgeoning events business - specifically to provide a bridge between our government user community, and the many solutions providers we work with.

She's a very capable lady, having joined us from INSEAD where she was in charge of their executive programmes - and before that she was the Conference Director of IQPC's Government Practice, in Australia and then Singapore.

Frankly I'm chuffed to bits to have someone else to go off on obscure conversational tangents with on slow Wednesday afternoons, and I'm looking forward to her helping us out with next week's Government Technology Summit in Phuket as well.

As if any proof of her organisational skills were required, within minutes of her arrival at Alphabet Towers she had neatly untangled and then tied up all the various computer and telephone cables in her vicinity. What a woman!



14 October, 2007

What do elephants, government officials and transvestites have in common?

Alphabet Media events, like the people that organise them, are different. How different? Well let's take a little look at the upcoming Government Technology Summit in Phuket (24-26 October).

Admittedly, this is 'the big one'. Of all the events Alphabet Media runs - and we've run seven this year - nothing quite matches the Government Technology Summit for scale and ambition (there's over US$4 billion of annual ICT spending power in the room, for starters!). But let's look for the distinctive elements of this event to get a sense of the company's idiosyncratic vision - and why that makes us rather special, rather successful, and dare I say it, a rather fun place to work at.

Government Technology Summit brings together, in no particular order:
  • 100+ top tier government officials*
  • singing transvestites
  • 17 ICT sponsors (eg. Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Motorola, Cisco, Lockheed Martin - and a few others you might have heard of)
  • a baby elephant
  • the gala dinner of the annual Government Technology Awards
  • evening tuk-tuk excursions
  • structured 1-to-1 meetings
  • a French jazz band (let's not mention the rugby, eh?)
  • caricaturists
  • a sponsor ROI survey
  • a 256pp perfect bound, full colour delegate workbook
  • much less PowerPoint presentations than you might expect
  • a lot of high-level conversations
  • a private beach
  • end-of-conference karaoke

*Yes, I know. Everyone says their delegates are 'high-level'. But I'm thinking the number of CEOs, CIOs, Permanent Secretaries, Director-Generals, Ministers, Vice Ministers, Chief Superintendents, Commissioners et. al. [100, to be exact] make this event rather special. Where other organisers might aspire to have a room full of Directors ... for the Government Technology Summit, Directors are too junior...

So then, not your normal conference, right? And that's principally because we're not your normal conference organiser. At Alphabet Media we focus on nurturing two active communities of end-users, principally through our two magazine brands - Public Sector Technology & Management; and Asian Security Review.

As a result of our strong commitment to reinforcing the sense of 'community' of our readers, we view our events as natural extensions of our communities. Our speakers and attendees are known to us. The recognise the sincerity of our commitment to providing them with great quality, and largely free, content. Many of these people are our friends. And it is this which makes us different to other media companies.

Then there's Alphabet Media's, er, 'eccentricity'. I mean ... who'd have thought to expose 100 top-tier government officials to Phuket's most famous transvestite cabaret act? Who'd bring along a baby elephant to a welcome cocktail party? This is not the behaviour of normal events companies. And it's this fondness for thinking outside of the box that makes what we do, and how we go about doing it, distinctive. And the people who join Alphabet Media are distinctive people. Clones need not apply.

So, now you know what young elephants, trannies and civil servants have in common: Alphabet Media. And if you think you've got something in common with us here too - email me at james.smith@alphabet-media.com

04 October, 2007

Miiiiiiiinnnnnnnnkkkkeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey

Mmm. Mmmmmm. Mmmmh.

As my colleagues will attest, I am strangely drawn to the nickname of Si Mink, our departing Sales Administrator. Sometimes the nickname just wells up from somewhere deep inside me, and I feel impelled to share its sonorous qualities with everyone in the office ... really rather loudly.

Anyway ... I'll try and keep it in check for now, as it's time to say cheerio to Mmmmmm. Mmmmm. Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Ahem, say cheerio to Minky.

She's a lovely lady, a formidably good karaoke singer, and very, very ... calm. As an imoveable anchor of calm besides the antics of myself and J2, she helped provide a key link between my soaring aspirations for the business ... and whether companies had paid for their advertising.

Regular readers of this blog will know that nobody leaves Alphabet Media unless they're in tears, or drunk. So the pics are from her leaving do at Zouk ... where the team turned out in force last night to swing our pants to the finest retro tunes at Mambo night. I can assure you, I swung like Tarzan - but cruelly, there are no pics of me.

She's going to be missed by all of us here, and I think she'll miss us a bit too as she buggers off back to Malaysia. But I guess she won't miss me singing out her name several times a day.

Miiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkkkkeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyy.

Other pictures: Bryan and the rest of the gang showing what they're made of.