Internet Summit 16 begins Wednesday November 16th in Raleigh. Billed as the “Definitive Digital Gathering” and now in its ninth year, IS16, as it’s known, brings digital, marketing, and tech speakers from across the nation for two days of in-depth content and networking.
I remember the very first Internet Summit. Launched in 2008, this annual conference has become one of the largest self-contained events to hit Raleigh every year. It regularly brings in a few thousand people these days, and has evolved and transformed itself as much as the digital aspects of business that it covers.
Internet Summit has always had a place for startups, and while that place has also evolved over the years, it remains one of the better events in the region for entrepreneurs to attend, especially those on the marketing or branding side and/or those who cater to those kinds of companies.
The top tier of speakers includes celebrities like Morgan Spurlock and Al Madrigal as well as higher-ups in the ranks of Facebook, Hubspot, Salesforce, and even the Onion. They’ve got an after-party that will feature the Original Wailers. That’s also a thing they do very well, mix in the right amount of fun and excitement in what could otherwise have been, like most conferences are, a pretty grueling if educational eight-hour marathon.
Internet Summit is the jewel in the crown of tech-event company TechMedia, and I’ve actually known TechMedia co-founders Eric Gregg and Scott Hedrick since forever. This, and a coincidental alignment in where each of us were taking our careers, means I’ve been to every single Internet Summit except for last year’s when I was traveling, have spoken at four, and have sponsored two.
So I can speak to the history of Internet Summit as it relates to startups, and lay out what you, the entrepreneur, should expect from this massive-but-still-growing event.
For the rest of the story, read at ExitEvent:
http://exitevent.com/article/a-brief-history-of-internet-summit-as-it-relates-to-startups-11072016
