Silicon Slopes exploding with successful tech summits
Alex Dunn, left, and Mitt Romney speak during the second annual Silicon Slopes event at the Salt Palace Convention Center on Friday, Jan. 19, 2018, in Salt Lake City.
Ryan Smith, founder and CEO of Qualtrics, announces the company’s new experience management platform on Thursday, March 2, 2017.
BambooHR employees meet with customers at the 2018 BambooHR Summit in Snowbird Ski Resort April 26, 2018.
Just a decade ago, Utah was known mostly for its Mormons, the Sundance Film Festival and snow.
Today, in addition to drawing international crowds for its popular national parks, the state also draws them in for its technology conferences and summits.
The Silicon Slopes Tech Summit started last year with about 5,000 people — a fairly large number for an inaugural technology conference. This year it posted even higher numbers, with about 14,000 attending the two-day conference.
According to Clint Betts, Silicon Slopes CEO, the Tech Summit is now “the largest tech event in Utah history.” Betts estimates the summit will grow to 50,000 in the next five years, and foresees it becoming a “global tech event that just happens to be in Utah.”
In addition to an exclusive concert and film screening, the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit was able to pull some of the most sought-after presenters in the industry this year as well. Attendees heard from Omar Johnson, vice president of marketing at Apple and chief marketing officer of Beats by Dre; Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe; and Liz Wiseman, author of The New York Times bestseller, “Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter,” among others.
That summit isn’t the only one finding success. Most major Utah tech companies now host their own user conferences or technology conferences as well, flying in speakers from around the nation, and hosting skiing or other adventure excursions. This year has already seen successes at Domopalooza, the Utah Business and Technology Summit and the Talent Innovation Summit.
Provo’s Qualtrics has been holding its own experience management summits since 2013, and seeing growth every year. Kylan Lundeen, head of marketing at Qualtrics, said they first started their summits sort of as an appreciation party for their customers, with only about 700 customers and clients attending the first one.
The 2018 X4 Summit in March brought in 7,000 attendees. That number would have been significantly larger, but the Qualtrics event management team had to cap registration simply for lack of physical space. Lundeen said next year’s numbers will most likely be more than 10,000.
“This year was our official transition. We are no longer a customer summit, but a place where the industry can learn about providing the best practices in customer experience,” Lundeen said, explaining that the Qualtrics summit now appeals to various sections within a variety of industries, including human resources, brand management, even call centers.
“We’re not just for the hard core technical user anymore. Our platform works for anyone who wants to provide a cool customer experience,” Lundeen added.
BambooHR in Lindon held its second live technology conference at the end of April in Snowbird Ski Resort, and posted even more attendees than last year. Though the company has held online webinars and conferences in prior years, Brenda Travassos, BambooHR event manager said people love to have a destination site to travel to for learning and networking.
“Now more than ever, people have options, and we need to show our clients exactly our culture and product and how we’re different,” she said.
Many Silicon Slopes industry experts seem to feel the same way about Utah and its unique tech scene and culture, and enjoy showing off the state while sharing important technological content and skills.