The great thing about our company is that it is community involved and community driven. Our 360|Flex show was developed through the support of the community. We give some of our money back to the community in a variety of ways: sponsor contests, help pay for shirts, etc.
Recently, I was able to attend the Adobe Community Summit (group shot at the top of the post, click it for higher res). It’s this once a year event where Adobe brings together all of its User Group Managers as well as Adobe Community Experts. It’s loads of fun and a great idea by Adobe. Hats off to Jonathan Wall and his crew for always putting on a great summit.
Adobe brings in their best and brightest to talk about their products. They also cover the cost of the hotel, food during the summit and a few evening activities (i.e. parties). Every company should look to that and do the same for their own community.
For whatever reason though, Wednesday night had nothing going on. After a quick chat with John and a business friend (Denver Dave), we made the announcement that 360|Conferences and RealEyes would be taking everyone out Amici’s for pizza and drinks (picture at the bottom. I’m horrible at estimating things: distances, time to drive, etc. Therefore, there’s no shocker I underestimated the size of the group coming. I said 20 and we had way more. LOL We were like 5 people away from shutting the place down and catering only to us.
We realeyes’d (bad pun, I’m sorry!) the awesome opportunity we had to give a little back to these great community leaders. While they seemed grateful for the food, it was our two companies who felt luckier helping all this great dialogue take place and letting those folks from all around the world hang out together.
When a company can help a community grow, it’s doing the right thing. After all, marketplaces were once just as much social centers as they were business centers. It’s time we try to bring back a bit of that back.
