ACQUIRE Show poised to deliver market intelligence

As I look at the growing line up of speakers and content for the upcoming ACQUIRE Show, I can’t help but see it as a great opportunity to gather intelligence on customers.

Just looking at the IT sessions – they are calling them Hubs – you can see sessions focused on cyber threats, integrated technology delivery, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and DevOps.

Often the speakers at the June 8 and 9 show are going to be government officials such as Matthew Barrett, program manager of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, who has been invited to speak, and Terry Clapp, information assurance instructor from the State Department.

Deirdre Harris, product leader, from the ITES-3H contract team at Army CHESS, will speak on how to procurement hardware using her contract.

Granted she is there to inform government buyers how to use her contract but just think of the nuggets of information you’ll glean on procurement practices and you’ll be able to go to customers and say, I heard Deidre Harris say, X, Y, Z.

Other speakers will be from industry, mostly technology vendors, but don’t expect a sales pitch. The idea is to present information that government buyers can take action on. If those are the customers you want to serve, then it seems to me that you want to know what kind of advice they are getting.

Also at ACQUIRE will keynote speakers and of course the show floor where there will be a variety of companies exhibiting. So, yes, you can probably expect a bit of sales pitch there.

But overall, I’m excited about the show because of the content.

Washington Technology will have its slate of Industry Day sessions with speakers from the Marines, Air Force, FBI, and Social Security Administration. There will be a special focus on small business contracting, but as I’ve said before this kind of information is invaluable to all sizes of companies.

With the government’s emphasis on utilizing small businesses, mid-tier and large companies need to have their partnering skills in tip-top shape.

And of course, with any large conference and show there will be plenty of networking opportunities.

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