Industry leaders and business professionals alike all gathered recently in Phoenix, Arizona for IAVM’s 97th VenueConnect Annual Conference and Trade Show. Smart City Networks loves this event! We have been a proud sponsor for years and always enjoy interacting and collaborating with fellow industry experts to discuss the future of telecommunications. This year’s VenueConnect was particularly eventful for our company. Besides the sponsorship, Smart City Networks was able to promote an exciting new telecommunications service, spoke on several different industry panels, and happily celebrated the success of one of our own.
One of the highlights of this event for us was the announcement of Smart City’s Hosted Voice Solution, our new cloud-based business voice over internet protocol (VoIP) service. Hosted Voice is a state-of-the-art platform that we believe is the future of efficient phone service. Its quality and assortment of user-friendly features help make it an impressive alternative to out-of-date PBX systems. With Hosted Voice, Smart City is rising to meet the modern-day needs of the telecommunications industry and we felt VenueConnect was the perfect opportunity to unveil it.
On top of the Hosted Voice announcement, Smart City also participated in a series of panels and talks geared toward providing business professionals with key insights and updates regarding our industry. Julia Slocombe, Vice President of Operations, West Region, helped usher in first timers and new members at orientation, then spoke alongside our Vice President of Technology, David Langford, at the Future of Venue Technology panel. Together, the two offered their thoughts about important considerations like cybersecurity, infrastructure, and events requirements vs. venue requirements. Smart City Networks always has an eye on the future and hearing Julia and David discuss an ever-changing technology landscape was an eye-opening experience highlighting how to move forward in our industry.
Another key panel was the IT & Wi-Fi Selling Points – Becoming More Tech Savvy When Selling, which saw our Vice President of Regional Operations Dennis O’Gara addressing the need for convention sales experts to be able to accurately talk tech with prospective customers. The goal for that talk was to turn every attendee into a “tech wizard” and thanks to Dennis and all the other great speakers, we think we helped accomplish that goal!
If you had a chance to listen to any of our panels, you would know how important putting an emphasis on people and client relationships can be, and it is why we wanted to end this with a celebratory boost. The cornerstone of our company will always be our fantastic employees and we love it when one of our own is celebrated and recognized for their hard work and enthusiasm. IAVM’s 30 Under 30 Class of 2022 was honored at VenueConnect and Smart City Networks is proud to congratulate Jalen Thomas, General Manager for the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center in Sacramento and one of our youngest General Managers, for being part of that elite group of honorees. It was a perfect conclusion to a wonderful conference.
Smart City Networks enjoyed their time at VenueConnect this year and we would like to thank IAVM for letting us be a part of it. We already cannot wait for next year!
