Inkling Administrator Conference on May 7th in Chicago

Space has been reserved, the morning OJ and bagels have been ordered, and the lanyards to hold badges should be in shortly.

In two weeks on May 7th in Chicago, Inkling is putting on its first annual Inkling Administrator Conference. The term "conference" seems a little misplaced, however, as we've purposely limited the number of attendees, have shunned sponsorships, and designed the day for lots of discussion and informal presentations. Even the room will be set up like a big horseshoe so it will be easy to dialogue with one another.

Our goal will be to focus exclusively on sharing war stories, practical advice, and valuable applications, and for Inkling administrators to meet each other and swap notes and business cards.

The agenda we've put together should make for a compelling day. Representatives from Sears/Kmart, Kraft, Procter & Gamble, Chevron, and The World Bank will talk about their marketplaces: their lessons learned, their growing pains, their results.

Arik Johnson from Aurora WDC will talk about applications in competitive intelligence, Jared Heyman from Infosurv will discuss results of their work with clients using Inkling for market research, Steve Goldberg will share his ideas about prediction market applications in the non-profit space, and I'll be presenting some thinking we've been doing around prediction markets applied to value chains.

We'll also discuss the challenges of going from pilots to scale, how organizational/bureaucratic pitfalls can be overcome, and share some insights on the success factors of marketplaces we've seen over time.

We're really looking forward to meeting everyone in person and listening to our speakers and attendees share their thoughts.

If any other current or prospective Inkling administrators reading this would like to attend, you can contact our intern [email protected], who has been helping us organize the day. We can probably fit a few more people in the space we've reserved, so he can tell you if we still have room and answer any questions you might have about the day.