Documens Boss

The AIIM 2010 Show and Conference, staged by Questex Inc. in conjunction with AIIM, was held again in Philadelphia on April 221 -23, 2010. From my vantage point, it was a mirror image of the 2009 event, with the number of exhibitors perhaps lower and the attendance about the same.
 

Questex claimed an overall attendance for the AIIM Show and the companion On Demand event, of 24,000 people. However, from my perspective, this was highly inflated.  Having attended 20+ AIIM events, I would have guessed an attendance of 8,000 to 10,000. Perhaps the new accounting makes it to 24,000 if 8,000 attendees enter the hall 3 times!
 

The key draw in 2010 was clearly SharePoint.  SharePoint related companies, such as KnowledgeLake, drew big crowds and high interest.  In addition, smaller vendors in the SharePoint Pavilion also seemed to have a constant stream of visitors. In general, most exhibitors seemed content to be at the event, in contrast to 2009, where many expressed their displeasure with the attendance.  In fact, most of those who were not happy in 2009 were not exhibitors in 2010.
 

While there were no major “breakthroughs” at AIIM 2010, it was clear all exhibitors had a renewed focus on solutions and problem solving. Stalwarts such as Iron Mountain, Digitech, Hyland and others, showed well and announced new offerings, while smaller entries such as Atalasoft, NewSoft and others, demonstrated new solutions and toolsets. Of note was Iron Mountain’s further move into Litigation Support, leveraging many aspects of its business and disparate business units.
 

The major announcement at the end of the show was the moving of the event for the next several years to Washington, DC.  That announcement was greeted well by many of the vendors, as the Philadelphia venue has seemed to be “overused” in the past years.
 

The AIIM Event is a great gathering place for industry professionals.  Document Boss always attends, as we meet with many company leaders in a  short space of time at a single location.  However, vendors remain careful about where to spend their money.  Unless enhancement is made to the number and quality of end user and buyer attendees, the event could fade as so many general technology events have done in the last decade.
 

From my perspective, the show should be in the business centers of the US, not in secondary cities. New York is a great market and has more headquarters than any other US cities; this career marketing guy finds it surprising that this event has so far avoided New York!  Likewise for Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco…….
 
We want this event to survive and continue to be the meeting point for the industry!