NMBA readying the rollout of iSummit

Canada’s new media industry will have a fourth national conference this spring with the launch of iSummit, a business issues-focused event from the Toronto-based New Media Business Alliance (NMBA). Despite existing events such as Alliance numériqc’s Montreal International Game Summit, New Media BC’s Vidfest, and Nextmedia from Achilles Media, the NMBA’s iSummit will bring an added element to the Canadian new media sector. "Each has a different flavour - I think there’s room definitely for all of them," says NMBA president Ian Kelso. The NMBA event will focus more on the business development issues in new media, rather than on the creative side – something he says other conferences already do quite well. "Whereas Nextmedia is partly a festival, and...Vidfest the creativity as well as the business, our summit is mostly focused on the business of creativity," he says. "All of our sessions are really talking about distribution and revenue model paradigms and ways to monetize and get your stuff out there to an audience." With Toronto home base for the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund as well as many of Canada’s major broadcasters, the city’s new media community has naturally gravitated towards convergence projects, distinguishing itself from its video-and-film-focused compatriots in Vancouver and the gaming cluster in Montreal. "You get more social networking sites like Degrassi and you get more Flash-based games and things like that," Kelso says. "Here in Toronto we need an event to catalyze the community, the disparate sectors, to bring them together and learn from each other," he says. "We don’t often get the TV people and the music people and the publishing people together with the digital media/interactive people in one room for a couple of days." And, for producers, investors and others located in central Canada, flying to the west coast or Alberta can prove onerous. "We want to be able to get some of those executives who otherwise might not be able to make those commitments of time," Kelso says. The NMBA is targeting a baseline attendance level of 150, but Kelso believes iSummit will draw more like 200 or even 250 attendees. "Based on the response that we’ve gotten so far, just on purely talking to people, we think there’s a lot of enthusiasm," he says. Kelso has retained Toronto new media veteran Jason Roks to produce the conference and oversee the planning process. "He’s kind of an interesting guy, because he’s got the business background but he’s also an uber-geek," Kelso notes. Kelso is confident the NMBA iSummit will flourish, based on the growth of such events south of the border. "It’s amazing how many events there are growing up now," he says, pointing to events staged by Digital Hollywood, the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, the Yankee Group consultancy among others, as well as the newly minted Podcasting and Portable Media Expo. "There seem to be a lot popping up now. There’s a lot of interest down there a larger market for that type of business conference," Kelso says.

NMBA readying the rollout of iSummit

Broadcast | January 20, 2006

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