Glue 2012 will be the best Gluecon yet

As you may know from reading prior posts on the subject the two days that comprise the Glue Conference (May 23rd and 24th, 2012) are some of the most information packed and interesting days of my year. To me what sets Glue apart is that it stands almost alone in the conference circuit as a show that’s neither company specific (Google I/O, Dreamforce, Chirp) or startup celebrity focused (DEMO, TC50, etc.). There are only a sparse few events that are developer focused  – which makes Glue that much more important.

Glue is an incredibly well run conference and you can tell by looking at both the substance and structure of the agenda that Eric and Kim have put a lot of thought into how to enable conference attendees to get the most out of being there. From the simple things that you’ll appreciate long before you realize that you rarely see them at other conferences (power strips at each table, blazing fast wifi, killer soundtrack, etc) to the break-out sessions designed to dive deeply into a subject or technology, to the ample networking, to the ALU DemoPods (see below), Glue is an event designed to enable every attendee to get the most out of their being there (Eric and Kim don’t believe that their job stops when you walk in the door; a great sign of this is that you’ll often see them roaming the floor putting people together that they think should meet).

Last year and again this year, we’ve partnered with Alcatel Lucent to bring the Glue DemoPod to the conference, enabling 12 early stage companies to the show to show off what they’re up to. This was a huge hit last year, with the conference attendees voting for their favorite new company among the bunch (with the winner getting the chance to make a keynote address to the entire conference on the last day of the show). Thanks to ALU, we’re doing it all again for 2012 with another great batch of companies:

• Ducksboard
• CloudMine
• ownCloud
• Mortar Data
• Keen.io
• Tempo
• Kronovia
• RapidEngines
• Cloudability
• Emergent One
• Distil
• WhenAUser

New to this year’s Glue is a focus on the hackathon. We’ve done them each year of Glue, but never with the emphasis we’re placing on it in 2012. This year we’re bringing in a great group of hackathon sponsors to help us out (Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Pearson, Cloudspokes (Appirio), Mashery, Loggly), we’re extending the hackathon into day two of the conference, and we’re seriously upping the ante on prizes. Glue is about developers and developers like to build stuff. Come hack away!

So whether you’re an enterprise developer (staying current on technologies, checking out what start-ups can help accelerate your own businesses and internal development initiatives), a start-up developer (all of the above plus looking for a chance to interface, recruit and push the envelope with the next generation of technologists) or a C-level exec (in particular looking to see what’s 3-6 months out on the horizon) Gluecon is for you.

You can register for the event here. Or email me if you have any questions.