Most of our readers are aware we run an online calendar focused on events in Southern California that might be of interest to our business/high tech readership. A portion of the calendar also goes out in our daily email every day. Local high tech groups tell us that the calendar really helps them to get the word out about their events.

One of the most frequent questions we get is “how do we get our event on the calendar?” The better question is, what’s the best way to get an event listed, and what are we looking for in an event to list it?

1. First, it has to be in Southern California. For some reason, we still frequently get people who think we cover ALL startups all over the world, but, as much as I’d love to go to your conference in Helsinki, it’s not going to be useful to our readers.

2. Next, it needs to be an event of interest to the high tech community. That can and does include many, business, marketing, legal, and other events, which are associated with running and or affecting high tech, biotech, venture capital-backed, and other related “technology” businesses.

3. It helps if the event is run by a nonprofit, or recognized conference organizer in the industry. We list events from all the local organizations which are helping to promote the local industry, and those which are providing exposure to local startups and high tech companies. We usually do not list sales seminars, sales pitches, “free” briefings designed purely to attract customers. Though we’ll take advertising for those types of events.

4. Next, make sure you have a URL (preferred) or person to contact. It’s amazing in this day and age where there is no web page to look at for the latest event information. We don’t list addresses of events, because we want you to connect with the local organization and get the full details on the event (time, place, speakers, etc.)–just in case the event changes or is cancelled, which actually happens very, very frequently.

5. Have a short, concise title and one paragraph description for the event. We reserve the right to edit these descriptions (and frequently do, for clarity or other reasons). We also will not list, or will heavily modify, events which will snarl up our email newsletters. Even though we may not care personally, apparently there are enough corporate email firewalls out there which block out keywords like: viagra, marijuana, liquor, beer, alcohol, wine (yep, those wine tastings which are so popular get blocked), sports (baseball, football, etc.), gambling (mentions of Las Vegas et al). We also occasionally will block out the names of certain companies or event organizers who somehow–although legitimate businesses–have managed to reliably trigger spam filters, particularly at AOL and Microsoft’s Hotmail.

6. Finally, submit your event to our web site. It’s by far the most efficient way to get the event listed. Emails to me do get processed, but I’m much slower and will just do the steps above.

Do feel free to email me directly, as well, or put me on your event distribution list, as that also helps to make sure we get your event out there.

ps. If your event isn’t in Southern California, we also lists events on our other sites, and in particular the Seattle/Portland, Colorado/Utah/Arizona, and Texas. We’re not listing events (except for partners/exceptional events) in Silicon Valley right now, because there seems to be as many events in Silicon Valley in one day, as there are events in all the other markets combined in a month.

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Announcements, Conferences, Events by Benjamin Kuo