The Jeff Pulver Blog: A short history of VON and our plans for 2006:

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October 06, 2005

A short history of VON and our plans for 2006:

Looking back, today is around the day ten years ago that I started working on the launch of what became VON. Back then, I worked from an “office” in my home on Long Island. It wasn’t until November, 1997 that I took a room in my accountant’s office in Melville, NY that eventually grew into pulver.com.

Since the launch of VON in April, 1997 in San Francisco, over the years and throughout the world, our events have attracted many of the great minds in our space and VON has over time, evolved into the recognized industry event for the IP Communications space.

Back in October, 1996 when I first started working on the idea of producing the first VON event, I made the decision to run VON twice a year in the US. Historically, our US VON events have always been our “biggest” events and these events have always had a global focus. Our recent Fall 2005 VON once again brought together people from the five major continents, representing over 60 countries in total. Spring 2006 VON will mark the 10th Anniversary of the launch of VON and I’m already looking forward to our return to San Jose.

At Fall 1997 VON, I was approached by several European vendors and asked to consider doing a VON event in Europe which lead to the eventual 1998 launch of VON Europe using the same team that produces our US based VON events. VON Europe has taken place once a year since then. VON Europe is a true pan-European event and at VON Europe 2005 delegates from over 65 countries spent time with us in Stockholm.

In 2003, as I observed the number of companies entering the VoIP space in Canada, As a result, I decided to launch VON Canada in 2004 as a domestic Canadian event focused on the Canadian IP Communications Industry. VON Canada became known as “Voice on the Net Canada” because of a run-in we had with the Victorian Order of Nurses who felt that in Canada, VON stood for them and not for us. In 2005, Voice on the Net Canada attracted delegates from all of the Canadian Provinces and we are looking forward to continued growth at VON Canada 2006.

During 2004 and 2005 as I watched the IP Communications Industry grow, I started working on growing pulver.com into a world class events and media company that could support a worldwide portfolio of various events and other related activities. The first step in the process was the opening of our office in Beverly, MA in 2004. In April this year, Jason Chudnofsky joined our team as CEO and in June pulvermedia was launched. pulvermedia now is the organization that is responsible for all of the events that we produce and is the umbrella organization responsible for our media activities.

As we looked at the global take-off of IP Communications in 2005, a decision was made to follow the VON Canada model and launch a series of domestic, (national) events in countries where VoIP is happening. This in turn lead to the planning and launch of: VON Mexico, VON Russia, VON UK and VON Japan in 2006. Each of these respective events are focused on the state of IP Communications in their respective countries. These events will be a great place to be for companies who are looking to do more business inside of these countries. As I looked at the continued growth of the European IP Communications industry, a decision was made to introduce a second Europe VON event in 2006. This in turn lead to the announcement of Autumn 2006 VON Europe which will be a pan-European event taking place in Berlin. Spring 2006 VON Europe will be taking place again in Stockholm.

It has been an amazing ride with great memories during the 10 years from where VON was just an idea to where it is today, and I appreciate the continued support we have had over the years from the community of people who make up the evolving IP Communications industry. While there are many individual people to acknowledge for their contributions to our success including the members of the pulver.com team over the years, the one person who I would like to thank is my dad for his encouragement in the early days. While he is no longer around in the physical world, and I continue to miss his presence, I continue to try to follow the leadership and entrepreneurship that he taught me.

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