The submission window close just over a week ago, and since then, I’ve spent a lot of time going through the speaking proposals – we received more than 170 proposals, more than any previous HostingCon – and beginning the process of distilling some of this content down into what we intend to be the best educational program the hosting business has ever seen.

After spending a limited amount of time going through the submissions, I can say with certainty there are some really great ones, and a lot of very good ones. There are more good session proposals in the system than there are speaking slots at the event.

This isn’t going to be an easy process.

This, of course, is why we need your help. We’ve got our opinions, and we’ve got our advisory board, but HostingCon is the industry’s event, and we want to make sure the community’s perspective is a big contributor to the program. We need you to log in and vote on which sessions you want to end up in the final program.

Voting opens today, February 1, 2012, and closes February 17, 2012.  That gives you a couple of weeks to make your voice heard.

How it Works

Register: If you haven’t already done so, register to attend HostingCon 2012. The nice thing about registering right now is that you can save $200 off the full conference cost with the early bird rate.

Vote: Head over to the voting page on the HostingCon website, and cast your vote for the sessions that interest you. Remember, user voting is going to have a big impact on which sessions end up in the program. The process is simple. Click the vote button if you like it. If you don’t, leave it alone.

That’s about all there is to it, but if you want to spread the word about HostingCon, or potential pieces of the program you think deserve attention, you can certainly do that.

I look forward to seeing what the community likes best out of this year’s crop of submissions. Thanks for attending, and thanks for voting. And I’ll see you at HostingCon.

For all the latest HostingCon news and information, visit HostingCon - The Premier Conference and Trade Show for the Hosted Services Industry

As you probably know, we rely pretty heavily (like many industry conferences) on proposals from would-be speakers to generate a part of the educational track, and I wanted to put another notice out there to make sure everybody who might submit a session has it on their mind.

The deadline for submissions is coming up fast – January 20th, which is next Friday. That gives you another week to get that great proposal into the running.

A little bit about what we’re looking for:

This year, we’ve adjusted the tracks a bit, introducing a “management” track and combining the “business development” and “industry trends” tracks from last year. For the management and technology tracks, we’d love to see some real deep dives delivered by experts.

Specific is good. Unique is good. Obviously, great ideas are good.

A bit about sales pitches:

Bad idea. Definitely the best way to ensure your proposal doesn’t get picked up.

A bit about the process:

Once the call for submissions has closed, we’ll be selecting the best sessions through a combination of attendee voting and feedback from our advisory board, who we’ll be introducing in the next week or so.

If you’re not interested in speaking, but there’s something you’d really like to see in the program, feel free to post a comment to the blog post here. If it’s a good idea, on topic and within the realm of possibility (so, y’know, no Tiger Woods golf clinic), we’ll definitely do whatever we can to make it happen.

So, keep those submissions coming. Just make sure you get them in before the 20th.

For all the latest HostingCon news and information, visit HostingCon - The Premier Conference and Trade Show for the Hosted Services Industry

Some of you, I’m sure, are familiar enough with the process that you have submissions already prepared. Before you jump right to the submission form, however, I might suggest you peruse this blog post a little further. I’ll offer some advice on what you can do to make your proposal as appealing as possible.

Here’s the link to the speaker submissions page, anyway.

What’s the same?

As with past years, we’ll be using speaking submission to generate a significant (though not firmly set in stone) percentage of the program. After the window for submissions closes, we’ll go through the same rating process as usual. Submitted sessions will be evaluated by the HostingCon advisory board, by attendees via the website, and by the HostingCon team. As always, we’re determined to keep improving the HostingCon program.

What’s new?

We’re going to place a lot of emphasis on making this the best educational program that HostingCon, or the hosting business, has ever seen. That’s not necessarily a new sentiment (we’ve never aimed for number two, that I’m aware of), but it’s the principle that’s going to drive any changes we make this year. One of those changes is a shift in the alignment of tracks. This year, we’ll have the ever-popular Sales and Marketing and Technology, along with a Management track and an Industry Trends track.

One of the most consistent bits of feedback from previous years was the comment that the technical track wasn’t technical enough. This year, we’re planning to make sure the tech sessions are deeper dives into their subjects by real experts in the field. And we’re going to do the same thing with the management track.

What do we want?

Particularly in the case of the Management track, and the Technology track, we’re going to give special consideration to the sessions that promise deep dives into their subjects, particularly by people who have demonstrated expertise in their particular subjects.

So, in the Technical track, we’re looking things like technical evaluations or comparisons of competing tools or services; really instructional how-to stuff; and other practical, instructional sessions around architecture, infrastructure, networking and other technical topics. If it’s not something the average person could walk in, sit down and understand – that’s not a bad thing at all. Ultimately, we want each track to deliver more benefit to a somewhat smaller percentage of the overall audience.

In the Management track, that means we want speakers who are experts  in running a business to deliver some real value – on specific management issues – to hosting business operators whose background may not necessarily be in business, but who are doing what they can to successfully operate a business. That may include hiring and HR issues, sales management, customer service and other subjects. As with the Technology track, the deeper and more specific, the better.

What’s next?

Head over to the speaker section on the HostingCon website, submit your proposal, and hopefully we’ll see you in the program for HostingCon 2012. Remember, you have until January 20 to get your speaking proposals in.

For all the latest HostingCon news and information, visit HostingCon - The Premier Conference and Trade Show for the Hosted Services Industry

Our goal is that great content be the number one distinguishing characteristic of HostingCon, and we’re actively looking for new processes and projects to support that.

The session submission system, with user voting, is a tried and true way for conferences to produce content that users are interested in, but it can’t cover all the bases – for instance, you can’t vote for something that isn’t there.

We also do a lot of user surveying (as well as a lot of informal conversing) at the HostingCon event, which is another reliable source of a lot of great session topic ideas. However, it has a few obvious timing limitations of its own, and it only covers past HostingCon attendees, not new ones.

We want to do more to invite user suggestions for great session topics at the 2012 event. We want to know exactly what the audience wants to see. And we want that audience to have as much of a hand as possible in developing the program.

For now, that means an invitation to post your suggestions in the comments section of this blog. And, of course, I’ll throw it up in the HostingCon LinkedIn group, and you can post session suggestions there.

You can also get in touch with me directly. I’ve gone through hundreds of business cards during my time in the hosting industry, so you may already have my info. If you don’t have a card, my contact info is very easy to track down.

Finally, if you’d like to see us build a more robust session-requesting function into the HostingCon website, I’d be interested to hear it. Feel free to post about that in the comments too.

So, let’s hear it. What, or who, do you want to see in the HostingCon program this year? I can’t promise that every suggestion will end up in the program, but I can definitely assure you that every suggestion will be read, considered and put to use in the best way we can (an idea might help us fine-tune another session, for instance).

Thanks for the help.

For all the latest HostingCon news and information, visit HostingCon - The Premier Conference and Trade Show for the Hosted Services Industry

Register today to cash in on super early bird rates and get your 2012 conference pass at the lowest price possible:

	Full Conference w/Lunch Pass – Only $419 – REGISTER NOW ***SAVE $310 OVER REGULAR RATES!***
	Full Conference w/o Lunch Pass – Only $279 – REGISTER NOW ***SAVE $310 OVER REGULAR RATES!***
	Any Single Day Pass – Only $209 – REGISTER NOW ***SAVE $120 OVER REGULAR RATES!***
	Exhibits Only Pass – Only $59 – REGISTER NOW ***SAVE $40 OVER REGULAR RATES!***

Don’t let your chance to attend the premier industry event at the lowest price possible get lost in the hustle and bustle of the holidays – Register Now!

Be A Part of the Industry’s Premier Event…

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For all the latest HostingCon news and information, visit HostingCon - The Premier Conference and Trade Show for the Hosted Services Industry

To the hosting industry itself, Endurance is a force of nature – a giant in the SMB space, serving 1.9 million customers, handling 7.7 million domains and operating (approximately) 36 separate hosting brands.

To vendors serving the hosting industry, EIG is one of those big customers – the kind of deal that can distribute a product to millions of users.

To the HostingCon crowd, EIG is the quintessential strategic buyer in the M&A scenario. It’s not an investment bank or a VC firm. It’s the big hosting brand that buys the smaller brands. Most of those 36 brands were acquired at some point.

And within the context of HostingCon, Endurance senior VP of corporate development has been a familiar face, both in sessions of his own, and on M&A panels, where he has offered insight into how hosting acquisitions go down – what the buyer is looking for, essentially.

So how does the acquisition impact the HostingCon crowd?

It’s pretty safe to assume that it will be more or less business as usual for Endurance, following the deal. Warburg Pincus and Goldman Sachs are investors, and Endurance is an investment. There’s no parent company. It doesn’t get rolled into something bigger. And for Endurance, business as usual means more acquisitions (with maybe a little more money to throw around).

For the HostingCon program, well, maybe it means this time Bardenheier has a little more experience on the other side of the M&A table that he can share.

For all the latest HostingCon news and information, visit HostingCon - The Premier Conference and Trade Show for the Hosted Services Industry

Register today to cash in on super early bird rates and get your 2012 conference pass at the lowest price possible:

	Full Conference w/Lunch Pass – Only $419 – REGISTER NOW ***SAVE $310 OVER REGULAR RATES!***
	Full Conference w/o Lunch Pass – Only $279 – REGISTER NOW ***SAVE $310 OVER REGULAR RATES!***
	Any Single Day Pass – Only $209 – REGISTER NOW ***SAVE $120 OVER REGULAR RATES!***
	Exhibits Only Pass – Only $59 – REGISTER NOW ***SAVE $40 OVER REGULAR RATES!***

Be A Part of the Industry’s Premier Event…

Register Now to Attend HostingCon 2012 and Save!

For all the latest HostingCon news and information, visit HostingCon - The Premier Conference and Trade Show for the Hosted Services Industry

Interested in exhibiting at HostingCon 2012? Check out the Exhibiting at HostingCon 2012 page for more information or contact us at info@hostingcon.com. Better hurry! The exhibit floor is already 57% sold and is expected to be sold out months before the conference.

Want to attend HostingCon 2012? Conference registration will be opening soon with highly discounted super early bird rates! Sign up for our newsletter in the upper left column to get notified when registration opens. Start planning ahead for the industry event of 2012 now by going to the Travel & Hotel page for information on the conference headquarter hotel, flight/airport information for Boston and ways to get around the historic city during the conference.

Be alert for additional updates throughout the end of 2011 and into 2012 as the world’s premier conference and trade show for the hosted services industry gears up to make history in Boston, Massachusetts.

For all the latest HostingCon news and information, visit HostingCon - The Premier Conference and Trade Show for the Hosted Services Industry

Dawson was instrumental in arranging a panel discussion that sought to bring some of the federal legislative issues facing hosting providers to the forefront of the discussion at the show, and in the hosting community in general.

Along with the session, Dawson and several others (including David Snead, lawyer to many hosting companies) organized a community forum meeting to facilitate some early discussion on how hosts might effectively lobby congress as a community, in order that the industry might have a seat at the table during the development and discussion of legislation that has the potential to negatively (and greatly) impact the hosting business.

In the WHIR TV video, Dawson discusses the impetus for the effort – in particular the Protect IP Act (formerly known as COICA), which has the potential to treat hosting providers as complicit in the content (including, notably, copyright-infringing content) posted by their users. There’s no safe harbor for hosts in this legislation, as written.

The other key piece of legislation he mentions in the video is the “Protection Children From Online Pornography” act, which, as Dawson points out, is named in such a way as to make opposing it an uncomfortable stance. But this piece of legislation, as it stands, would have enormous, unmanageable data retention requirements for hosting providers.

What to do?

Join up. Get involved in the Save Hosting group. Find out what you can do to contribute to the cause. According to Dawson, the session and meeting were packed, and momentum is building.

Here are some links if you’re looking for more info on the Save Hosting project.

www.twitter.com/savehosting
www.facebook.com/savehosting
www.linkedin.com/groups/Save-Hosting-4020869

For all the latest HostingCon news and information, visit HostingCon - The Premier Conference and Trade Show for the Hosted Services Industry

Phil took a stroll down the HostingCon isles and caught up with Parallels, cPanel and even stopped by the WHIR booth to see how they could help him with media coverage for his venture.

Take a look at the video that also features Phil’s amazing skills on the Softlayer Server Challenge.

For all the latest HostingCon news and information, visit HostingCon - The Premier Conference and Trade Show for the Hosted Services Industry