To infinity and beyond

I believe you demonstrate a real commitment to excellence when you look to 'fix' something that isn't broken - and that is what we're doing with our alterations to our big annual government event held every October for the last three years.

From next year we're moving to Bali, the event is doubling in size, we're having afternoon classrooms, and twin morning tracks in order to serve the chief technologists in government - and their bosses.

That's right - their bosses are coming along this time as well.

We retain our unique ability to deliver CIOs and Directors of IT, and are then taking the next step to deliver a programme that attracts Permanent Secretaries, Vice Ministers, Commissioners and Director-Generals.

Standing from the outside of the PSTM community looking in, you might be tempted to say "they won't be able to deliver". But people like Business Objects' Choon Yang Quek said that about this year's event - "I don't think you'll be able to get senior people to attend an event in Phuket" - and they were proven wrong. This is because it is easy to confuse what we do at Alphabet Media with what conference organisers do.

Alphabet Media's magazine-driven communities of senior professionals support us so actively precisely because of their trust in our content, and in the journalists who create that content 52 weeks a year.

For us a conference is not something we run once or twice a year - it is a welcome opportunity for us to meet face-to-face people we are already in touch with regularly throughout the rest of the 12 months.

Many of these people are our friends. We get a lot of Christmas cards from our delegates - just ask IQPC, Marcus Evans, IIR, Terrapinn, Pacific Conferences, Asia Business Forum et. al. how many delegates send them seasons greetings!

So we are not a conference organiser, and hopefully never will be. Instead we are a couple of tightly-defined user communities. And it is this clear focus on the interests of our community which forces us to keep thinking how to deliver greater and more relevant value to our readers - and this is something we do on a daily business.

'What more could we do for them?' is a question that crops up a lot at Alphabet - but I never heard that asked once in the seven years I worked at Terrapinn/AiC Worldwide, and trust me Terrapinn are one of the better conference organisers.

So say hello to - FutureGov 08 (15-17 October). We're no longer the leading Asia Pacific technology event for public sector - we're the leading innovation gathering for public sector leaders in the region, and increasingly beyond. At Alphabet, the future looks bright.