Sponsorship! A new departure for Read-out Signpost

Read-out and our virtual presence The Read-out Instrumentation Signpost rarely sponsor events.

Signpost sponsors #ISAMS

True we have in the past organised seminars under the banner The Read-out Forum which were successful interchanges of ideas on pertinent topics in the field of Automation. We have also been closly associated with the local ISA Ireland Section’s seminars and technical meetings in Ireland, the latest of which was the Networking Event held in June in Cork City.

We have however, now, decided to travel abroad -allbeit virtually – for the next involvement. Again it is an ISA venture which strikes us as very interesting and important. We were able to attend several sessions of this event from the comfort of our own office here in Ireland last year, and were impressed both with the quality of the content, the speakers, and the organisation of the event, which was held in the US city of Boston. We think, though this is open to correction, that we are the first non-North American entity to act as a sponsor to an ISA event.

The fifth ISA Marketing and Sales Summit is scheduled for the “Gone with the Wind” city of Atlantain early September, and frankly we give a damn! We mentioned it last April and since then have continued to be impressed with what is planned. So when we were asked to act as a sponsor we took little time to decide, “Yes!”

Entitled In Search of the Holy Grail: Integrating Marketing and Sales, sessions are to focus on best practices in social media, guerilla marketing, brand marketing, winning complex accounts, market-driven product development, business development and engineering, product marketing management vs. product management, sales vs. marketing, branding in the web 2.0 era, and redefining advertising in the digital age. Breakout sessions are to provide even more practical information. We hope to bring you more up to date with sessions and workshops at this event in later blogs.

Committe member Juliann Grant, of Telesian Technology tells us that “the ISA Marketing and Sales Summit continues to break new ground and deliver vital, timely marketing and sales education, and incredible networking for automation professionals.” And indeed it does. And this is why we have agreed to act as a sponsor for this innovative and exciting event.

It extends over a period of three days with intreguing keynote topics and speakers.

Mark Douglas of Longborough Research is to deliver a pertinant keynote address “The Automation Industry from a Wall Street Perspective.” on the evening of the first day.

They have also managed to sign-up, Jim Cahill, one of the most experienced and practised “social mediaists” in the automation industry as a not-to-be-missed keynote speaker. And you don’t have to take our word for it, his blog for  Emerson Process Management has earned the 2010 “Best Corporate Blog” award from from BtoB Magazine for the “Emerson Process Experts” blog of which he is the author. He’ll talk on “Social Media – Should We, Should We Not, or Should We just Ignore the Whole Thing?”

On the third day Dick Morley, Father of the PLC, will deliver a lunchtime keynote with the enigmatic title “Black swan!” He is never a boring speaker and his “outside-the-box” contribution could well be the highlight address of the event.

We will not unfortunately be able to attend in person but be assured we will, like Big Brother, be watching from afar!

The Read-out Instrumentation Signpost is honoured to be associated with this exciting and relevent event and we look forward to reporting on it as it happens both by tweet (#ISAms) and on our Facebook Page.