What do elephants, government officials and transvestites have in common?

Alphabet Media events, like the people that organise them, are different. How different? Well let's take a little look at the upcoming Government Technology Summit in Phuket (24-26 October).

Admittedly, this is 'the big one'. Of all the events Alphabet Media runs - and we've run seven this year - nothing quite matches the Government Technology Summit for scale and ambition (there's over US$4 billion of annual ICT spending power in the room, for starters!). But let's look for the distinctive elements of this event to get a sense of the company's idiosyncratic vision - and why that makes us rather special, rather successful, and dare I say it, a rather fun place to work at.

Government Technology Summit brings together, in no particular order:

• 100+ top tier government officials*
• singing transvestites
• 17 ICT sponsors (eg. Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Motorola, Cisco, Lockheed Martin - and a few others you might have heard of)
• a baby elephant
• the gala dinner of the annual Government Technology Awards
• evening tuk-tuk excursions
• structured 1-to-1 meetings
• a French jazz band (let's not mention the rugby, eh?)
• caricaturists
• a sponsor ROI survey
• a 256pp perfect bound, full colour delegate workbook
• much less PowerPoint presentations than you might expect
• a lot of high-level conversations
• a private beach
• end-of-conference karaoke

*Yes, I know. Everyone says their delegates are 'high-level'. But I'm thinking the number of CEOs, CIOs, Permanent Secretaries, Director-Generals, Ministers, Vice Ministers, Chief Superintendents, Commissioners et. al. [100, to be exact] make this event rather special. Where other organisers might aspire to have a room full of Directors ... for the Government Technology Summit, Directors are too junior...

So then, not your normal conference, right? And that's principally because we're not your normal conference organiser. At Alphabet Media we focus on nurturing two active communities of end-users, principally through our two magazine brands - Public Sector Technology & Management; and Asian Security Review.

As a result of our strong commitment to reinforcing the sense of 'community' of our readers, we view our events as natural extensions of our communities. Our speakers and attendees are known to us. The recognise the sincerity of our commitment to providing them with great quality, and largely free, content. Many of these people are our friends. And it is this which makes us different to other media companies.

Then there's Alphabet Media's, er, 'eccentricity'. I mean ... who'd have thought to expose 100 top-tier government officials to Phuket's most famous transvestite cabaret act? Who'd bring along a baby elephant to a welcome cocktail party? This is not the behaviour of normal events companies. And it's this fondness for thinking outside of the box that makes what we do, and how we go about doing it, distinctive. And the people who join Alphabet Media are distinctive people. Clones need not apply.

So, now you know what young elephants, trannies and civil servants have in common: Alphabet Media. And if you think you've got something in common with us here too - email me at james.smith@alphabet-media.com