Phorum 2014, to be held April 10 during Philly Tech Week, has powerful list of headliners

Tom Paine

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Philadelphia's Phorum 2014, hosted by PACT (The Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies), and sponsored by investment bank Fairmount Partners and technology integrator LiquidHub, will take place on Thursday, April 10 at World Cafe Live, for the first time as part of Philly Tech Week.

The conference, which is probably Philadelphia's premier tech event targeted towards top level enterprise management, has varied and in some ways broadened its theme in each of its three years. This year's theme, "Increasing Customer Engagement in a Digital World", encompasses not only social, customer relationship management (CRM) and mobile, but all means used by enterprises to connect and interact with customers in the digital world.


While customer engagement continues to be a top priority for CMOs with over 70 percent of
respondents listing it as their top business challenge that they need to address, a recent survey conducted by PACT Phorum in late 2013 revealed that the issue is increasingly gaining traction with CTOs and CEOs. According to the survey, 38 percent of CTOs and 33 percent of CEOs also concur that customer engagement represents the top technology challenge they need to focus on in 2014.

The list of keynote speakers is impressive. Salesforce.com VP and Head of Platform Research Peter Coffee, a leading Salesforce evangelist, apparently has a long-term contract with Phorum since this is his third consecutive appearance.

David Pogue, technology columnist formerly with the New York Times and now
with Yahoo and NOVA ScienceNow; Aneesh Chopra, who served as the first U.S. Chief Technology Officer and just yesterday was named an advisor to Box to help develop its healthcare IT strategy; Dan Hilferty, President and CEO, Independence Blue Cross who has been a leader in expanding the healthcare IT landscape in the region; and Maggie Fox, Senior Vice President of Digital Marketing at SAP and a leader in social media, are the other key speakers.





Functionally, an emphasis of the conference will be not to simply focus on the rising influence of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) as a key decision-maker in many tech buying decisions, "but on the importance of the CMO [and other functional chiefs] working with the CIO", said Suzanne Lentz, Vice President of Marketing, LiquidHub, Inc. and a member of the Phorum 2014 Advisory Board in a phone interview. Though the rapid adoption of a stand-alone functional app can be attractive, any large-scale projects requiring integration of corporate systems and data will need more coordination.

A recent Forrester survey tends to confirm this need. More than half of CMOs see their relationship with the CIO as essential,up from 30% in 2011.

An interesting feature will be a "Fireside Chat" between Salesforce's Coffee and SAP's Fox discussing the challenges and opportunities their clients have faced in moving beyond simple outreach to creating real engagement with customers.

Other discussion panels will cover subjects such as "Mobility as an enabler" and "Turning
Big Data into action."

One of the most popular features of Phorum has been the Demo Pit, which features early stage digital technology ventures generally based in the Philadelphia area. Past
selections for "Best in Show"included PeopleLinx and one acquired by Artisan Mobile.
Nominations are still open for this year's Demo Pit, and participants will be named in early April.

The day kicks off at 7am with a continental breakfast.

The conference will close with Cocktails (free beer) & a Network Reception with live music. Price points are $199 for PACT Members and $249 for non-members.

Update 3/24: Panelist Lineup were announced today for Phorum 2014:

“Mobility as an Engagement Enabler” (moderated by Joseph DiStefano of the Inquirer:)

David Cuthbert, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alteva

Michael Kinzly, Director Business Solutions, Wawa, Inc.

Joe Portale, Chief Technologist, Mobility Solutions, Lockheed Martin

Roy Rosin, Chief Innovation Officer, Penn Medicine

Scott Snyder, Ph.D., President and Chief Strategy Officer, Mobiquity


“Big Data – Turning Data into Action” (Moderated by Mary Fran Johnson, Editor-in-Chief of CIO Magazine:)

J. Patrick Bewley, CEO, BigCloud Analytics

Todd Cullen, Chief Data Officer, Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide, Ogilvy and Mather

Ira A. Hunt, CEO, Hunt Technologies

David Schuff, Associate Professor of Management Information Systems, Fox School of Business, Temple University


Update 4/1: Yesterday Phorum named its nine demo pit participants. They include
some rather well known startups such as RJMetrics, Clutch and Yorn, and others like BuyerMLS, Canvas and tapCliq. One slot in the demo pit will be reserved for the winner of Penn mobile app contest AppItUP.

During the closing session, three Demo Pit companies will be selected to join Peter Coffee on stage. One will be named “Best in Show” and will receive the 3rd annual Phorum Phorward Award. Phorum 2014 Demo Pit judges include: Bob Moul, CEO of Artisan Mobile; Scott Kinka, Chief Technology Officer of EvolveIP; and Nate Lentz, Managing Partner of Osage Venture Partners.

Phorum Philly '13 Highlights: PeopleLinx wins "Best in Show"; Philly Enterprise Hackathon 2013 announced

Tom Paine

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The second annual Phorum Philly conference, held at World Cafe Live on March 21, focused this year on "harnessing disruptive technologies", specifically social, mobile and big data.

I was eagerly awaiting to hear what Gus Hunt, CTO of the Central Intelligence Agency, would say addressing Phorum on the topic of managing big data. In particular, it might have been timely for him to say something regarding reports that the CIA had reached a ground-breaking (for both parties) agreement with Amazon Web Services for AWS to provide private cloud services to the necessarily security-obsessed CIA. It was first reported by Federal Computer Weekly at the beginning of last week to be an arrangement worth up to $600 million to AWS over 10 years.

Unfortunately, in typical CIA fashion, Hunt was called away by a last minute emergency. Salesforce.com's VP and Head of Platform Research, Peter Coffee, who had given the opening address to the conference in the morning, by all accounts did a fantastic job filling in for Hunt on big data, demonstrating how versatile he is.

But on the previous day, Hunt did address the issue of big data at GigaOM’s Structure Data event, where Gigaom said he responded to a question about the Amazon connection by saying said he could not comment now but “maybe someday.” Hunt also said in his Structure address, "we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang on to it forever."

The Demo Pit at Phorum 13 was filled with a strong group of locally based ventures. PeopleLinx, the Philadelphia-based startup which builds applications that help companies better utilize LinkedIn and earlier last week announced it had received $3.2 million in funding from Osage Venture Partners, Greycroft Partners and MissionOG, was voted "Best in Show" by attendees, besting fellow finalists Curalate and iMomentous, with the award being presented by Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz (D-PA 13). PeopleLinx' Bill Conn described the Phorum experience for the company on the PeopleLinx Blog.
MissionOG is an interesting new locally-based fund focused on BtoB, technology-oriented startups that has also invested in CloudMine and Cloudamize.

Another Demo Pit participant, Philadelphia-based enterprise app and collaboration platform WizeHive, announced during the week that it had received additional seed funding from investors including Gabriel Investments and Goldin Ventures. WizeHive also announced that DuckDuckGo founder Gabriel Weinberg had joined its board.

Also at Phorum, the Philly Enterprise Hackathon 2013 was announced, sponsored by PACT and several Philly area companies. The Hackathon, which will offer prizes valued at $100,000 and incubation opportunities, will run from April 2 through April 19.




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Phorum Philly 2013, to be held this Thursday (the 21st), has a different focus, but same quality as last year's program

Tom Paine

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Last year, PACT, the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies, got together with others including investment banking firm Fairmount Partners and Philly Startup Leaders' President Bob Moul to bring a world class enterprise-oriented technology conference to Philadelphia, with a national scope but a strong Philadelphia focus. The result was Phorum Philly 2012, which concentrated on cloud computing, and it was enthusiastically recieved and highly successful by most accounts. While Chariot Solutions' Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise conference (already sold out for this year) has much the same appeal for hands-on developers, Phorum was intended to be geared more to enterprise IT execs trying to better understand major trends and new approaches for enterprise solutions.

This year, the event returns, Phorum Philly 2013, hosted by PACT and presented by Fairmount Partners and LiquidHub, once again held at World Cafe Live on this Thursday, March 21. Phorum 2013 will feature the same high quality program content but a different emphasis in terms of subject matter. This year's focus will be on harnessing disruptive technologies, including mobility, big data, and social computing. The event will kick off with a Keynote session, followed by three sessions, one for each technology track. Tickets are still available at this time; tickets are $199.00 for PACT members and $279.00 for non-members.

Don Tapscott

Peter Coffee: VP and Head of Platform Research, salesforce.com, who spoke at last year's Phorum, will lead off with an overview of how disruptive technologies are impacting the business world. Author, consultant and business executive Don Tapscott,whose work has often anticipated emerging trends such as collaboration, will give the Keynote address. Ted Schadler, Principal Analyst, Forrester, will speak on "Leading the Mobile Workforce", and Sameer Patel, Global Vice President & GM Social Software, SAP
, who joined SAP last year to develop its social entreprise strategy, will address "Rethinking Work: The Next Chapter in Social Collaboration."


After lunch, the afternoon session will kick off with Gus Hunt, Chief Technical Officer for the Central Intelligence Agency
 speaking on "Leveraging Big Data
", something the CIA certainly has a great deal of.

The remainder of the afternoon will consist of six panel sessions; two each on each main theme, one presented from the vendor perspective and one from the enterprise perspective. A notable list of panelists includes Relay Network's Matt Gillin, Jive Software Chief Social Scientist David Gutelius, LuquidHub's Ravi Kalakota, Comcast Business Services' Patrick McGlone, Moul, SevOne CEO Michael Phelan, AppLabs founder Sashi Reddi, and Mozilla Chief of Innovation Todd Simpson.

A major feature of the conference, the Demo Pit, will be open all day and features nine of the most interesting startups in the region, including Curalate, iMomentous, PeopleLinx, Powerlytics, Quantum Leap Innovations ( which I profiled last year), and WizeHive. Fairmount Partners' Allen Born, Advisory Board Chair for Phorum 2013, said in an interview with Philly Tech News that he was very pleased with the quality of the Demo Pit participants and the fact that all the companies are locally based this year.

Voting on the Demo Pit participants will begin after the morning keynote and will be open to 3:45pm. The closing session and awards presentation will begin at 4:50, during which the "best in show" award for the Demo Pit will be presented. This year's Demo Pit award presenter will be Montgomery County and Northeast Philadelphia congresswoman Allyson Schwartz, a probable candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2014. Last year's Demo Pit winner, UXFLIP, was subsequently acquired by appRenaissance (now Artisan Mobile).

A Cocktail & Network Reception will follow from 5:30 to 7pm.

Born said said that World Cafe Live can hold about 400 people, and approximately 350 tickets have been sold so far. He also said that a TV will be available upstairs for those who wanted to catch up on the opening of the NCAA Tournament's Field of 64.

Also see update: Some breaking news items related to Phorum participants CIA & PeopleLinx



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Phorum 2012 Cloud Computing Conference promises to shake up Philly Cloud scene

Tom Paine




Philadelphia has many excellent tech events and conferences that serve different constituencies. Chariot Solutions' annual Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise conference (already sold out this year), for example, is focused more on the developer commmunity. But there has been for some time the lack of a premier event geared towards enterprise executives and CIOs/CTOs emphasizing business solutions that is national in scope yet distinctly Philadelphian in its focus.

Also, the rise of cloud-based technologies and Software as a Service (SaaS) has undeniably become a tidal wave transforming the enterprise IT landscape, not only by improving cost effectiveness but also by adding new capabilities and flexibility. I recently highlighted parts of the local Salesforce.com ecosystem; in addition legacy vendors such as SunGard Availability Services and Unisys have ambitious strategies and architectures for the Cloud. Newer companies such as Dell Boomi and Xtium, and numerous other smaller startups, have great potential. Also, SAP AG is becoming a major Cloud vendor through its recently completed acquisition of SuccessFactors as well as its internally developed platforms.

Sensing a need that was not being served, Bob Moul, formerly GM of Dell Boomi and now President of Philly Startup Leaders (who also recently became Chairman & CEO of Philly-based mobile developer appRennaisance), and Charles Robins, Managing Director of Philadelphia-based investment bank Fairmount Partners, got together at the encouragement of PACT (the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies) to put together a world class event for Philadelphia focusing on cloud technologies for the enterprise. The result is PACT's Phorum 2012 Cloud Computing Conference, to be held on March 28 at the World Cafe Live in Philadelphia.

Moul said in a phone interview with Philly Tech News that Phorum is not intended so much for developers but more for enterprise general managers and IT execs. Although leaders from different businesses will give presentations, the atmosphere will not be one of sales-oriented pitches but rather informative and educational content, providing perspectives on the types of solutions available through the Cloud and some of the obstacles that might be encountered in implementing them. The goal is to achieve an environment similar to a Gartner or Forrester conference. And while the event may be national in stature, Moul emphasizes that the program is specifically designed for the Philadelphia business & tech community. Phorum is also trying to shake up the "east coast suit and tie banker / lawyer stereotype" with a more informal and trendy atmosphere.

The keynote speaker will be Nicholas Carr, a provocative commentator and sometimes skeptic on technology issues whose books include The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist) and The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (2008). He also writes the blog Rough Type. Other speakers include Peter Coffee, VP and Head of Platform Research for Salesforce.com, James Staten, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, and John Treadway, North American practice director for cloud and data center transformation at Unisys. All are prominent Cloud Computing experts.

The afternoon will feature panel discussions along two tracks: New Enterprise Models, and Mobility. Another major aspect of Phorum will be the Demo Pit, which will feature 12 mostly local early stage ventures demonstrating cloud offerings. You can see who they are here.

The event will close with "A Call to Action" featuring Salesforce's Peter Coffee and the announcement of the Demo Pit “Best in Show” finalists. A Cocktail Reception & Networking Event will follow with what is promised to be "great live music".

In addition to PACT, sponsors include Dell and Fairmount Partners. Some other sponsorship opportunities may still be available. The price is $250 for PACT members and $350 for non-members, or $50 and $75 for the reception only. You can register for the event here.

The Phorum Conference is intended to be an annual event, though it may focus on different topics in future years. You can follow information about Phorum on its LinkedIn page.



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