Last week we launched our new Reporting and Analytics Dashboard at DEMOfall. We were selected over hundreds of competing technology companies by “trying out†for Chris Shipley, the guru of new and innovative technology. Chris seemed to like our stuff and we were in.
It was fascinating to be at the show. It was in an idyllic environment at the Huntington Beach Hyatt and we went down Sunday morning for dress rehearsals. CEO’s and their marketing clans were everywhere practicing and rehearsing over and over and over. Lars in true Lars form showed up a few minutes before our timeslot and pretty much nailed it on his first try. Then he and his two blackberrys were off to execute on 500 other tasks. Of course I was wishing he would stay and rehearse just a bit more, but the 3% incremental improvement wasn’t worth sacrificing all the other things he would undoubtedly execute on that day (yes Sunday). This is what makes Lars great and why our company is so effective and productive.
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The morning of the first day (Monday) our write-up “Building a Better Workforce†came out in CFO IT Magazine, which made for a happy day. To have the CFO of a Fortune 500 corporation like Kimberly-Clark speak so specifically and highly of the value of our solution was huge. Read the article here. I could have gone home and called it a week (or a month) at that point, but of course that’s not even close to how we do it here, and it was on to DEMO.
The show itself was fascinating. Over its 15-year history, DEMO has become known as the premier event for revealing the products and services poised to have the greatest impact on the technology landscape. Products like salesforce.com, palm, and the ipod were all launched at DEMO. Products of ALL types, shapes, sizes where represented from online collaboration, to video surveillance, to mobile solutions.
I found it quite interesting that of the 60 technologies, 4 of them were workforce or HR related. H3, Green Array, and SimplyHired were there in addition to us. Also, I’d say about 90% of the products were offered in an on-demand or Software-as-a-Service model. The combination of these two facts was a huge validation that we are in a HOT space, with the right deployment model. It’s good to be us.
The format of the show is that each company gets 6 minutes on a huge stage to show off their product, as well as a small demo stand in an exhibit area to go into more detail. To check out a video of Lars’ 6 minutes on stage, click here. The event was crawling with media with almost all of the most influential tech editors in attendance. For example, at our stand we talked to writers from the Wall Street Journal, InfoWorld, NetworkWorld, CNET, and many more. We got some decent write-ups and are starting to get the word out about our impressive growth and customer success. All in all, a great event, with hopefully some more good press to come.
Blog mentions:
ZDNET Blog – DEMOfall Take Three-Nothing Non-linear – September 22, 2005
The Electronic Recruiting News – September 22, 2005
Red Herring – Startups Debut at DEMOfall – September 21, 2005
Computerworld – DEMOfall: Still More IT – September 20, 2005