Federal Travel Restrictions: Adapting to the New Normal

Three years since the travel restrictions went into effect, federal workers are settling into a new normal around how they meet professional development, training, and networking goals. A recent study by Market Connections looked at the types of content most in demand by government IT buyers and decision makers as well as what is being produced by the vendor community and found some interesting gaps between the two.

What immediately caught our eye was the response to the question, "With the recent budget and travel restrictions in place and the cancelation of events, what are you or others doing to get the information and/or training you previously acquired from events (i.e., trade shows, conferences, seminars)?"  The top two responses from the government officials surveyed were: Continue reading

Event Trends For 2015

It's that time of year to gaze into the crystal ball and talk about what we think will happen in the coming year. We're basing our event industry predictions on some of the trends we've seen in 2014. We think these trends will continue and grow in 2015.

  • Virtual events - with travel and training budgets remaining at low or even decreasing levels, the use of online training should continue to grow through at least 2016 when the change in administration may bring new budget priorities. What we would like to see is these events being developed not only for desktop viewing but also mobile viewing and interaction as more and more people are using mobile devices for the majority of their computing.

Continue reading