The Rebirth Of Gnomedex Is SIC

There is a natural tendency to not want good things to end. It’s why many champions fight on beyond their prime even at the risk of hurting their own legacy. But as fans, there is a part of us that wants them to continue. When Chris Pirillo, President of Lockergnome, “retired” Gnomedex last August, I personally felt it was truly a conference that the community would miss. It’s why I’m excited by the recent news that Gnomedex is returning as a one-day track in conjunction with the Seattle Interactive Conference (SIC).

Although the retirement was shorter than Brett Favre’s last retirement, Chris smartly recognized a golden opportunity and grabbed it. I’m referring to the upcoming official launch of SIC, which promises to be the type of large format conference that the Pacific Northwest has been yearning to have for some time. The local tech scene, while robust with the likes of Microsoft and Amazon, has often only hosted offshoots of larger conferences. SIC promises to deliver the type of event worthy of the hometown of such marquee tech companies.

I sat down to talk to Chris Pirillo and Brian Rauschenbach, Principal at add three and Curator of SIC, to find out how the events were brought together:

What about Gnomedex made you reach out to Chris?

Brian: Gnomedex has such a great heritage and our visions of bringing technology people together here in the Northwest are very closely aligned.  We also both believe in being locally supportive, if that makes sense — that is, bringing the local, technology community world-class event offerings that ordinarily require an airline ticket.  The Pacific Northwest is home to many of the world’s greatest technology companies and compelling startups and we think there is a great need to bring quality programming and a great event experience to them.  We know that Chris gets this and are excited to be working together!

What made you decide to do a one-day track at SIC?

Chris: Gnomedex is quite an undertaking itself, but it’s been perfectly designed to work within and support a larger expo structure like SIC. It’s our hope to partner with other large events and create within them a “VIP” content track, which is really what’s made Gnomedex resonate all these years. All things are possible with the right partners—and the SIC experience was something that was just too great of an endeavor to ignore.

My opinion? If you consider yourself a part of the greater tech community in this region, you should consider it your obligation to support SIC in some fashion. It’s long overdue, and I’m truly thrilled to be a part of it.

How will Gnomedex add value to SIC?

Brian: Gnomedex will provide another programming option to SIC attendees that is pretty compelling: A limited number of ALL ACCESS passes will enable attendees to come and go between the Gnomedex and SIC programming schedules throughout the day on November 2, then have full access to SIC offerings on November 3.  We have already seen tremendous interest in this via word-of-mouth.  There’s also a set of Gnomedex-only passes available for November 2, with no access to SIC programming.

In both scenarios, Gnomedex attendees will have access to SIC’s Exhibit Hall and parties, too.  With Gnomedex capped at 400 or so attendees and SIC planning for 3,000 or so, there’s a lot of room for great programming in early November.

What should past Gnomedex attendees expect as a change in this format?

Chris: For the past six years, Gnomedex had taken place at the Bell Harbor Conference Center. Obviously, this afforded us certain amenities which may not be available at SIC. Seating structure will absolutely be different, though we are actively seeking sponsors to: (a) ensure that every Gnomedexer has access to a “power strip,” and to help make sure that food and beverages aren’t a radical disappointment. Regardless, we are concentrating firepower on this single-track event to set the actual stage for share-worthy content.

There is the old sports adage that a champion should go out while they’re on top. Do you have any worries around reintroducing Gnomedex after “retiring” the event?

Chris: No. (If an e-mailed response could ever have an empathic tone, this was it)

As a longtime fan of Gnomedex, I look forward to seeing SIC and Gnomedex pull it off. If you would like to find out more about SIC go here. I, for one, wouldn’t miss it.

About Angel Djambazov

Born in Bulgaria, Angel Djambazov has spent his professional career in the fields of journalism and online marketing. In his journalistic career he worked as an editor on several newspapers and was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Wyoming Homes and Living Magazine. Later his career path led to online marketing where while working at OnlineShoes he earned the Affiliate Manager of the Year (2006) award at the Affiliate Summit, and In-house Manager of the Year (2006) award by ABestWeb.

For four years Angel served as OPM for Jones Soda for which he won his second Affiliate Manger of the Year (2009) award at Affiliate Summit.

Currently Angel serves as OPM for KEEN Footwear and MedicalRecords.com. His former clients include: Dell, Real Networks, Jones Soda, Intelius, Graphicly, Chrome Bags, Onlineshoes.com, Vitamin Angels, The Safecig, and Bag Borrow or Steal.

Angel is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher for ReveNews.com and ReveNews.org.

Angel lives north of Seattle, spending his free time reading up on obscure scientific references made by his wife MGX, while keeping up with a horde of cats and a library of books.

You can find Angel on Twitter @djambazov.

Website: http://www.revenews.com