Author Archives: Kerry Rea President of GovEvents

About Kerry Rea President of GovEvents

Twitter: @Kerry_Rea | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kerryrea/ I am a business and marketing professional with an extensive background in company start-ups. I have 20+ years direct experience in the information technology, government, franchise, and construction industries. Having a passion for business, I love brainstorming, collaborating and strategizing on the best ways to achieve our clients' and partners' business objectives.

In Webinars We Trust

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We've written a lot about webinars, using our anecdotal research based on what we hear in the market and what we see posted on the GovEvents' site. This year's Market Connections Federal Media and Marketing Survey provided some hard numbers that back up the growth in webinars we've been seeing.

Market Connections has been surveying federal employees for seven years to get a pulse on where and how they get news and information to influence buying decisions. This year's survey of 3,400 had some great news about the rebound of the federal events market as well as some interesting insight into online events. Continue reading →

Federal Events Rebound in 2015

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Market Connections released their seventh annual Federal Media and Marketing Study earlier this month and it has great news for the federal event community. The survey of over 3,400 federal employees showed a significant jump in event attendance. In 2015, 55% of respondents reported attending 1-3 events. That is up from 42% in 2014. Federal event attendance numbers had been declining for the past four years, making this year's jump even more notable.

[Tweet "Federal Media and Marketing Study shows significant jump in event attendance. #GovEventsBlog"]

The numbers back up what we have been hearing from our GovEvents members. Budgets and rules around travel and training have been easing up. Panelists at the event agreed that the tightening down of budgets and approval for events and training was an overcorrection in response to the GSA scandal and now we're finally seeing the pendulum shift back to a more rational place. But it was not just the GSA scandal that led to the decline in event participation. Panelists report there was a perfect storm of scandal, sequestration, and OMB guidance that left people confused as to what was "right" in terms of event attendance. Continue reading →

Top Events for Cybersecurity Month

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October is Cybersecurity Month and many organizations have taken the call to use these 31 days to educate and collaborate on solutions for a more secure cyber world. With over 70 cybersecurity events posted for the month of October on GovEvents, we wanted to highlight some of our picks for must attend events this month.[Tweet "Check out the top #government focused events for #Cybersecurity month #GovEventsBlog"]

  • October 7: Creating a Culture of Cybersecurity at Work (webinar) - The National Association of Counties will hold a series of webinars throughout the month with this one focusing on how organizations can enhance their security practices with widely available training and educational resources.
  • October 13: Closing the Desktop Security Vulnerability (webinar) - The combination of connectivity and skill can increase the risk of malicious intrusion at the desktop. This event, featuring the director of the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), will talk through NIAP's new requirements as well as the new Peripheral Sharing Switch Protection Profile (PSS PP 3.0).

Continue reading →

Pumpkin Lattes and Cybersecurity

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October is a month of cooling temperatures, falling leaves, and pumpkin flavored everything. More importantly, it is also a month dedicated to looking at best practices in cybersecurity that will protect our data and the systems we depend on from the evolving threats directed at them. [Tweet "October: falling leaves, pumpkin flavored everything and cybersecurity awareness. #GovEventsBlog "]

From a year's worth of headlines about breaches in the public and private sector we know the threat is real and quantifiable.

  • The annual cost of cybercrime to the global economy is over $100 billion dollars and affects 556 million victims per year.
  • The average length of time that a cyber-attack goes undetected is six months.
  • The average cost of a successful cyber-attack on an organization is rising year-over-year and is currently around $15 million.

October has been designated Cybersecurity Awareness Month by the White House, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is heading up the awareness campaign. Working with public sector organizations and private companies, DHS is encouraging the technology industry to use the month for training and education within their workforce and the public at large. [Tweet "DHS is heading up the October cybersecurity awareness campaign. #GovEventsBlog"]The Department has broken the month into themed weeks to make the daunting task of securing our nation's systems a bit easier to swallow.  This year's themes are:

  • General Cybersecurity Awareness: 5 Years of Stop.Think.Connect.™
  • Creating a Culture of Cybersecurity at Work
  • Connected Communities: Staying Protected While Always Connected
  • Your Evolving Digital Life
  • Building the Next Generation of Cyber Professionals

The DHS website references keystone events nationwide addressing these themes. Next week, we'll provide a list of some key events for the federal IT and management audience.

Why Virtual Events Will See Real Growth

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We are hearing that budgets and travel restrictions for government are starting to loosen up a bit and event planners are more optimistic about growing their in-person attendance. But this growth in physical events does not necessarily signal a downturn in virtual events. We believe that online events such as webinars, virtual tradeshows, and streamed hybrid events are here to stay and here's why. [Tweet "Online events -- webinars, virtual tradeshows, hybrid events are here to stay. #GovEventsBlog"] Continue reading →