I attended the DesignCon show in Santa Clara a few weeks ago, along with several colleagues. We were there representing both MWJ and SIJ, with particular emphasis on the latter media, based on the event’s focus. It proved to be a tremendous success for our team, as we distributed hundreds of copies of our first-ever Signal Integrity Journal print magazine, gave away hundreds of t-shirts and scanned hundreds of badges. It was a most worthwhile investment of time and money. And as an added bonus, the weather was beautiful.
What struck me most about the event was the excellent turn-out; well attended presentations and a very busy exhibition hall. Based on this high attendance, I came to two conclusions: Live events remain an attractive and useful resource for working engineers, and the Santa Clara Convention Center is an excellent venue for such events.
Having spent some time at our small booth, I was impressed with the caliber of visitor. They were clearly professionals looking to expand their knowledge base and gain insight to the latest products and technologies. They came with a purpose and they explored all opportunities. I also observed that many of them came from work for half of the day or even just a few hours. That’s a luxury that this venue affords; people can visit the entire exhibition from the hundreds of companies in the local area in a matter of hours. It’s easy to get to, right off the highway, with ample free parking.
I mention this because our own EDI CON event moves to Santa Clara this year, on October 17-18. While DesignCon serves the high speed communications sector, EDI CON connects these high speed digital designers with high frequency electronics engineers to solve the latest technical design issues. Silicon Valley is fertile ground for companies serving these markets and for professionals seeking these types of solutions. The high concentration of engineers combined with the ease of access should result in a busy event next October.
As we meet with engineers around the country, they continue to ask our editors for more in-depth, in-person training opportunities. We introduced a training day at EDI CON USA last year that was very well received. In 2018, we are evolving it into EDI CON University, which will be held on both days at the Santa Clara Convention Center. EDI CON USA is now an approved provider of IEEE certificates, and we plan to provide them for EDI CON University attendees. We have a limited opportunity for four sponsors to join us that day to present specific hands-on training to customers and potential customers, if you are interested, contact your MWJ sales representative for more details.
The “Call for Abstracts” for EDI CON is open and I encourage you to submit yours at www.ediconusa.com. Booth space is still available in the exhibition and you can view the floor plan in real-time on the site. Watch for conference and exhibition updates in the coming months.