Behind the Scenes of IWCE: Call for Speakers deadline set for Aug. 21

You may not realize all that goes into planning a tradeshow like IWCE, so this new series will take you through some of the processes and operations of the event staff as they plan for an event of 400 exhibitors, 7,000 attendees, 180+ conference sessions, and numerous special events, features and meetings.

As the conference director of IWCE, I am responsible for coordinating the speakers, breakout sessions, Keynote Addresses, Town Hall Meetings, General Sessions and any other education special features. Believe it or not, I am already starting to plan for the event taking place in March of 2020. I have a preliminary agenda outline for the program’s schedule, am researching potential Keynote speakers, planning budgets for the conference revenue and expenses, and most importantly coordinating the Call for Speakers.

To start the conference process, we deploy a Call for Speakers, where we ask past speakers, inquiries and exhibitors to submit ideas for topics.ne organize the fields on the web site to collect the information, set deadlines (proposals are due Aug. 21!), and highlight the key topic areas for the conference next year. I wish I had a crystal ball to see what will be important next March, but instead I rely on our industry partner IWCE’s Urgent Communications and its amazing editor-in-chief, Donny Jackson. In turn, we rely on our industry contacts—including the IWCE Advisory Board—to provide us with insight on the upcoming initiatives within their company, agency or organization.

In addition to the conference, I have a part of getting our registration pages ready to go, which also begin now, in order to get it up by August. The team is busy setting the price points, packages, discount codes and more.

Once again, I’m also working closely with ETA International, who co-locates their training class during IWCE. We need to finalize those classes before our registration goes live because it affects the options offered to attendees. This year, we’ve brought back several classes including DAS and DBA Design, Line and Antenna Sweep, Radio Frequency Interference Mitigation, and R56 training, and expanded the PIM training, all while adding classes on Antenna Systems Analysis and Fiber to the Antenna to address the implications of antennas in the in-building wireless and smart cities ecosystems.

IWCE covers the broad scope of all communications technology—from wireless to wired, from satellites to towers to HetNets, and from devices to applications to networks—so I also work with many industry partners that are driving many initiatives within the marketplace, whether their perspectives are primarily regulatory, technical, political, economic or otherwise. So, it’s a lot to cover, even in a five-day conference program! But IWCE is dedicated to bringing the most innovative education to the industry. We welcome input, ideas and suggestions on how to make the conference better for you. After all, it’s meant for you, isn’t it?

Stay tuned for the next Behind the Scenes blog, where we interview IWCE’s new Vice President, Paul Caplan coming out this July!