Last week I attended the Channel Partners conference in Las Vegas with Datagate‘s North American sales & marketing team. In almost two years, this was the first time I’d flown in an airplane, been outside British Columbia, been in person to a business event, and the first time I had the chance to catch up with so many industry friends, partners, clients and contacts.
I must admit that leading up to the event, I was somewhat nervous about the more-complicated processes involved in getting the Canadian members of our team in and out of the United States, and the question of how many people would turn up to the event – would it be successful? Other concerns included, what would we do if one or more of our team tested positive at one of the Covid-19 tests? As it turned, my concerns were unfounded and everything went smoothly.
The flight into the United States required us to take a rapid antigen Covid-19 test within three days of departure, and provide proof of vaccination status upon arrival at Vancouver airport. The flight back to Canada required the same via the ArriveCan app, except that the Covid-19 test needed to be of the more expensive PCR variety. No quarantine or isolation was required for any part of the journey, thankfully.
The Channel Partners conference was very successful, and they had a record number of attendees (I believe it was over 6,200 people). People there were generally in high spirits. Glad to be out at an in-person conference again and glad to be catching up with their friends and business contacts. Surely a good sign that life is getting back to some kind of normal.
For Datagate the conference was valuable on a number of fronts. We connected with a large number of new sales opportunities, met with clients, partners and prospects, and furthermore we had the opportunity to get our North American sales & marketing team together in person for the very first time. Our team was also able to meet with Datagate board member Eric Hernaez, who was also at the conference.
We announced Datagate’s sponsorship of Train our Troops who do great work for military veterans, helping them with training and certifications for their civilian business careers. It was great to meet the guys from Train Our Troops, and “Juan Rico” their friendly explosives detection canine.
This week Datagate team members are back at two more in-person conferences, which are the Compliance Solutions conference in San Diego, and the Connectwise IT Nation Connect conference in Orlando.
In 2022, we’ll start off the year exhibiting at the ITEXPO conference in Fort Lauderdale FL February (8-11) and then the SkySwitch Vectors conference in Orlando FL in March (27-30). Following that, we will be back at other MSP/telecom events including Channel Partners, DattoCon, Canadian Channel Partners and more.
If you’re attending any of these events, please come and say hello to the Datagate team!
Mark Loveys 