Needless to say, the Smart Grid Summit kept us pretty busy last week, and it’s fair to say that both our speakers and attendees found the event very worthwhile. I have a few personal comments to share, but before that, would like to recap some media coverage to give you a flavor for what other people have been saying.

If you follow our portal, you would have seen some daily coverage, particularly from Kelly McGuire, so that’s a good place to start. As an example, click here for her commentary about the Investment Climate for Startups session from Wednesday. However, we had a fair bit of coverage elsewhere, but this article is probably the only place you’ll see most of it pulled together in one spot.

Staying within the TMC fold, renowned blogger Tom Keating (News - Alert) sat in on some panels, and posted his thoughts as well as video clips. Tom is very strong technically, and always has keen insights about the practicality of new technologies, and I’m glad he dropped by. You can review his post about Dr. Ron Sega’s keynote here, and Kevin Suitor’s (News - Alert) keynote about WiMAX here.

Perhaps the richest source of summit content came from Livecage, our video media partner. John Hart brought this opportunity to TMC (News - Alert), and it was a great way to capture a wide variety of smart grid perspectives, as well as give our speakers additional exposure. Livecage set up a taping area on the show floor and, over the course of the summit, conducted 14 interviews, including one with myself. The interviews were done live off the floor, so they’re pretty raw, but the content is good and I hope you spend some time mining this. 

I’m pretty sure we’ll build on this and hopefully expand the Livecage format for the Los Angeles Smart Grid Summit held in conjunction with TMC’s ITEXPO (News - Alert) West event in October 2010. I’d like to see us do some roundtable type of interviews, maybe some demos and, where possible, to stream parts of the panel sessions live. Until then, I’ll steer you to the dedicated webpage where all the Smart Grid Summit interviews are posted.

Shifting back to print media, I have two write-ups to share. First is Mary Allen, who came down from Toronto on behalf of IT in Canada. She covered most of the summit, and her first article can be read here. It’s a broader review that includes the ITEXPO, but she has more coverage coming. Mary did a series of interviews with our speakers, so I know she’ll have more to say shortly. 

As far as I know, she was the only Canadian journalist covering the summit, and between our event and the Ontario/Canada tech showcase, she had the scoop on a lot of great content with domestic connections. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but the Smart Grid Summit had a strong contingent of Canadian speakers – as did the ITEXPO for that matter.

The second writeup came in the form of an interview that Laura Borgstede conducted with me as a preview for the summit. Laura’s PR agency, Calysto Communications, publishes a widely read newsletter, PR Vibes. Our interview ran in their issue just before the summit started, and you can read it here.

I actually have one more posting to add from my Analyst 2.0 blog to provide some visual balance against all these narratives. It’s a short set of photo highlights to help you see what you missed; or if you were there, you might recognize yourself in one or more places.

With all that said, I’d rather look ahead right now. I’ve already mentioned elsewhere that the summit was successful on all fronts, and we’re already planning for the next one. We believe that the quality of our sessions and speakers was very high, and that we covered enough ground to be of interest to both energy and telecom attendees. This is a tricky balance to achieve, and we’ll continue to strive for a similar mix, as I feel this is what makes our summit stand apart from other smart grid events.

Our efforts in Miami reflected a big step forward from our launch just a few months ago.  We expect to take an even bigger step ahead at the Los Angeles show, both in terms of the program and our exhibitor support. In October, you can expect to see a much bigger presence on the show floor, and by then, with the smart grid market being further developed, we will be well positioned to bring active buyers and sellers together to do some business. 

If that doesn’t give you reason to attend, then our program will. Most of our speakers want to return in October, and we already have a strong pipeline of others who want to join us. You can expect to see a similar range of topics covered, but with more varied formats. In addition to keynotes and 45 minute panels, we will mix up the program with some longer roundtable sessions, and hopefully a smart grid startup showcase, somewhat along the lines of the StartupCamp Telephony that just made its highly popular debut at the ITEXPO.

To wrap up, if there’s one takeaway to pass on from the Miami summit, it’s this – smart grid is for real, and if you missed out on what VoIP did to telecom, it’s not too late to be part of what’s happening now for utilities. Also - if you liked what you saw with us in Miami, you’ll love what we’re going to have on tap in Los Angeles. Mark your calendars now – October 4-6 – and check back with our website in a few months to see how the program is coming along.