After a year of waiting once again it's showtime! The 7th annual NamesCon Global conference opens Wednesday (January 29, 2020) in a new city, Austin, Texas, where it will run through Saturday. Earlier this month we published an extensive show preview interview with NamesCon CEO Soeren von Varchmin and Head of NamesCon Operations Helga Neumer. Before heading out to Austin I wanted to point out a couple of major events at the show that were finalized after that preview was published. 

One is a keynote speech from GoDaddy's new CEO, Aman Bhutani, that is scheduled for 1pm Thursday (January 30). Bhutani just took the reins in September after spending the past 20 years building his wealth of technical, entrepreneurial, managerial, and leadership experience. He has expressed a commitment to helping domain investors, developers and entrepreneurs realize their visions on the web. GoDaddy plays such a large role is so many aspects of this business, I expect Bhutani's address will provide one of the most important and insightful hours of the week.

Another big event that has been a fixture at NamesCon Global, is the

GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani

 annual Women in Domaining networking gala. That will he held Friday evening (January 31) from 6 to 8pm in the Afilias Lounge at the show hotel (the downtown Austin Omni). There is no charge but ladies do need to RSVP for free passes to the event. 

A couple of scenes from one of the Women in Domaining networking events held at NamesCon Global during the show's six-year run in Las Vegas (it is being held in Austin for the first time this year).

Finally a little "inside baseball" regarding show coverage. There is such a busy agenda this year I will have events to cover not only every day but every night (with multiple events on every weekday night except one - and that may change)! I realized that meant I will have to change my coverage strategy this year. In the past I have written and edited complete daily wrap ups at night and in morning hours of the following day while sessions were going on at the same time. This year the night hours will not be available and there is not enough time the morning after to write up wall to wall coverage. So, this year, each morning I will post a handful of my favorites photos from the day/night before (starting Wednesday morning with some shots from pre-show social events Tuesday night). I will do that each day, then when I am back home after the conference, I will do a complete show wrap-up in one big report. 

There will be a big historical advantage in doing that too. With coverage of previous shows broken into multiple daily wrap ups, there are no single links back to those shows (and providing a long list of daily links is cumbersome to say the least). So, With NamesCon Global 2020, one link will lead to complete coverage of the conference. No matter how the sausage gets made, the conferences are always enjoyable, rewarding events for me and I am expecting Austin to rank right up there with the best!