Testimonial from Glen Ballman, CEO of Genesis Exchange
AceTech Symposium at Whistler 2006
I just returned from AceTech Whistler - my first time attending AceTech or any conference that would be considered similar. To be honest I was quite skeptical, I don't like going to "networking" events, and I really have not taken the time to invest in ongoing business, ethics or personal training since I left my last company 4 years ago. I wasn't sure if I would be wasting my time.
I was actually blown away by how much I got out of the conference. It is organized into 3 days, 3 speakers per day, with some public company entrepreneurs, some professors that teach executives for a living, and a tiny bit of personal training. The days are convened in a large room with what appeared to be 100+ attendees, and between 3 and 5 PM there is a 2 hour breakout session in smaller rooms with 5-10 CEOs picking 2-3 topics to discuss that are meaningful to them at that moment.
First - I was impressed by the level and the quality of the professors. They were very well prepared, knew their topics inside out and were working with fresh data - not time worn slides or maxims. Generally speaking it seemed the professors were up to date to within 90 days, and the 2 that spoke were very active in the business community. One in particular serves on the board of Intel and was able to provide some insight from a company that has managed to stay on the bleeding edge for several decades.
Second - the speakers that were multiple repeat entrepreneurs had at least been mid-market cap ($500M+) and either gone on to succeed, gone on to fail or both. I liked the blend of success and failure - one speaker had his company wiped out in one day - market cap from $400M to $20M in one day after the FDA declined approval for their drug. Bob Young was there from Red Hat and I have been tracking his new company LULU for about a year - so I was curious as to how it was doing.
The CEO of McAfee also spoke - my takeaway from that was how large the online security business is growing (he told a story that what used to take hackers 225 days to hack - Microsoft windows security holes - in 2003, declined to approx 60 in 2004 and now in 2006 they are able to exploit security holes in less than a day).
Third - there was openness, a frankness of discussion that I had not seen at other conferences. One of the rules of the conference is that we are going to be discussing openly about our companies - so data and key points has to remain confidential. I can't say much about the conversations and the break out rooms other than the CEOs were impressive - again usually multiple repeat entrepreneurs - and the egos were checked at the door. I did not know who was in my breakout group going in, but generally they had been through the growth curve at least once, had more than 35 employees currently and in our particular group were wrestling with things like the proper blend of service and product focus, how to hire a good COO and very current topics like how to understand the "longtail" buzzword and apply it to their business. I really enjoyed the breakouts. I probably talked too much but was excited to be in a room and share ideas with people that were instantly up to speed and could look at things from the CEOs chair. One day out - I would say the breakout sessions were my favourite part.
The final thing I was very impressed by was I think caused by the time frame of 3 days. There was a chance to open a conversation, digest the other persons point of view, then pick up the conversation again. This happened multiple times to me, and I was able to think through some of the issues - then when I bumped into the same person the next day there was some fresh thinking and we were generally able to get much deeper into the topic, or partnership discussion. I think in some ways this fills that space that COMDEX used to occupy where you could negotiate face to face over several days and get a deal 95% put together with many different CEOs. I know
I am a big supporter of AceTech now.
Glen Ballman
CEO
Genesis Exchange
Glenn Ballman founded Onvia in 1996 and raised over $USD 70 million in private funding from venture capital, institutional and strategic investors including GE Capital, Van Wagoner Capital and Comerica Bank. As Chairman and CEO, he lead the company to $USD 150 million in annual sales in FY 2000; and through a $USD 240 million IPO on NASDAQ. He successfully negotiated major alliances with such entities as America Online, E*Trade, and Visa and has been frequently interviewed on CNN Moneyline and MSNBC as a leading expert in e-commerce and B2B marketplaces. Mr. Ballman was educated in
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