Event Trends For 2015

It's that time of year to gaze into the crystal ball and talk about what we think will happen in the coming year. We're basing our event industry predictions on some of the trends we've seen in 2014. We think these trends will continue and grow in 2015.

• Virtual events - with travel and training budgets remaining at low or even decreasing levels, the use of online training should continue to grow through at least 2016 when the change in administration may bring new budget priorities. What we would like to see is these events being developed not only for desktop viewing but also mobile viewing and interaction as more and more people are using mobile devices for the majority of their computing.

• Smaller events - with the demise of FOSE, the former behemoth of the Federal IT event world, people are looking more seriously at the value of big events. Are they providing the interaction that people living in an online world of instant gratification crave? We think that organizations may start experimenting with smaller events to drive the networking benefit that live events hold over online seminars.

• Big Data - While 2014 was the year of cybersecurity events, we think big data may take the lead in 2015. There is a lot of buzz around the promise of big data, but agencies are struggling with how to use it and what it all really means. There may be a combining of these two megatrends with events focused on how to use big data for better security posture - how do we use it to predict or prevent the data hacks we saw in 2014.

• Attracting Millennials - in an effort to attract younger talent into the aging federal workforce, the federal government needs to reach this audience through social media. Both agencies and the groups that serve the federal market must have a strong digital presence. These sites can show that there is fun to be had in government jobs and in the government "industry" as well.

Let us know your thoughts on our prognostications. Did we miss anything? Maybe next December we'll take a look back and see how we did.