Having attended BlackBerry World since the inaugural event (back in the days when it was WES!), I often take for granted that customers (and their bosses) inherently understand the value of the conference. After all, once you’ve attended, you just get it. In fact, based on our BlackBerry World 2011 Survey:

• 96% of attendees stated that “attending BlackBerry World was important to their organization”
• 99% of attendees “would recommend BlackBerry World to a colleague”, and
• 98% of attendees “plan to attend BlackBerry World again” (hopefully taking advantage of the alumni discount!)

But if you’ve never attended BlackBerry World, you wouldn’t know the experience for yourself. So, in addition to my apology, I’ve pulled together some reasons for attending BlackBerry World that you should consider.

Have a look at this presentation for the details: “Roger’s Top 5 BlackBerry World 2012 Attendance Justification Conversations To Have With Your Boss At The Water Cooler”.

Also, the BlackBerry World Conference catalogue covers a broad range of topics — you just might find exactly what you’re looking for. In fact, 84% of the attendees surveyed at BlackBerry World 2011 reported that “the breakout session catalog covered the topics they wanted to hear about.”

But beyond my “BlackBerry World 2012 Attendance Justification Conversations” – and in addition to all the work that goes into scheduling, preparing, promoting, learning from, and implementing various sessions – deep down, I think the single most valuable part of BlackBerry World is the people. I can’t put a price on this, or explain how it happens, but BlackBerry World simply brings so many of the right people together and creates the right environment that ‘magic’ is bound to happen. I’ve personally experienced it every year I’ve attended. You just might sit down to lunch and within minutes realize you’re seated with the one developer that has the exact application you’re after, an industry analyst who consulted on a similar business issue in Europe last year, a manufacturing customer who faced similar implementation challenges, and a system integrator that’s based near your office, but you’ve never run into before! Getting this brain trust together could take months of voicemail-tag and email trails. This fortuitous meeting of the minds can be invaluable. In fact, 88% of last year’s surveyed attendees claimed “BlackBerry World helped them meet colleagues (with whom) they would collaborate with in the future.”

So whether you base your attendance on the content or the networking, there’s something for everyone at BlackBerry World. So consider registering for BlackBerry World today…and if my “BlackBerry World 2012 Justification Conversations” do the trick, your boss might even come along, and maybe your team might then be able to take advantage of the group discount! Of course, you’ll have to be on your best behavior if the boss is beside you – but having them see firsthand the potential positive impact mobile technology can have on your company’s business could be worth the effort!

How do you justify conference attendance? Do you have a budget for the year? Per Person? Per topic? What do you say to convince your boss to approve BlackBerry World attendance? I’m sure your peers could benefit from your experience!

The BlackBerry Solutions for Your Organization and Industry track at BlackBerry World™ 2012 is always popular because of its broad appeal. It attracts business leaders, IT architects and senior managers working with BlackBerry in their enterprise or government organization. I talked to Wes M., the track leader and Senior Market Development Manager at Research In Motion® (RIM®) to get his views of the sessions this year.

BIZ BLOG: Since your focus is government customers, are the sessions in this track designed mainly for government audiences?

Wes M.: We always have terrific attendance from people in government at this track, given that many of the sessions are geared toward government interests. But we’ve also found a lot of other enterprise attendees from different industries who want to come and learn at these sessions. In many ways, governments can be thought leaders, and a lot of people want to come and hear what’s taking place. For example, we’re featuring a session called Strengthening Law Enforcement with BlackBerry Solutions that talks about police cars mounted with the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet. The takeaway from this session is how tablets can be used in any aspect of public service or field service to mobilize access to important information, easily and cost-effectively.

BIZ BLOG: How did you determine which sessions would be the best to feature this year?

Wes M.: This is my fourth BlackBerry World, so we did two things. First, we looked at the most highly rated sessions from last year, and that gave us a core set of sessions which we then adapted to reflect today’s technology developments. So you’ll see sessions like BlackBerry and Government: Boosting Productivity and Reducing Costs and Best Practices for Enterprise Mobile Social Networking.

Then we focused on key customers that could tell their story so our attendees could learn from a colleague’s experiences. Banking on BlackBerry: How Financial Services Companies and their Customers Benefit looks at the success banks are having reaching out to their customers with mobile banking apps. There’s also a good session on the opportunities in healthcare covered by BlackBerry in Healthcare: Enhancing Communications, Care and Collaboration.

BIZ BLOG: Are there any hot topics you want to highlight?

Wes M.: There are a lot of new opportunities we’ll be featuring, such as using Citrix Receiver™ on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Now you can begin accessing information from your desktop from anywhere you are in the world. This is really relevant for the U.S. Federal government, which is a huge advocate of teleworking. Citrix Receiver is a perfect remote access solution for people that can’t be at the office but need to access their office PC.

BIZ BLOG: Are there any events beyond the sessions that government attendees will want to attend?

Wes M.: Government Day is always really useful. We often have about 200 people registered for this event on Monday, April 30th, 2012. This year we have a worldwide focus, so there will be speakers from Latin America, Asia-Pacific and North America. It’s a unique opportunity to hear about compelling mobile applications using the BlackBerry solution that are being deployed by governments around the world. Customers from several regions will be discussing how their challenges have been solved with BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry tablets. This year, we’ll be hosting a panel that’s really going to get people involved in talking through the issues that affect governments today.

It’s easy to be a part of this event. When you register, indicate you were planning to attend Government Day, and you can add this to your record by logging back into the registration system or by contacting Registration Services at registration@blackberryconferences.net.

Why will you attend the sessions in this track? Let us know in the comments.