Show Up, Stand Out, Stick Around: Activate ISC's Full Potential. From First Impression to Lasting Community
Tuesday, June 23, 2026 4:15 PM to 5:00 PM · 45 min. (Europe/Berlin)
Hall H, Community Stage - Ground floor
Community Meet-up
Community EngagementFile Systems
Information
ISC is one of the most powerful community-building opportunities in HPC, but only if you know how to use it. A great event presence doesn't begin when you arrive on the show floor, and it certainly doesn't end when you pack up the booth. Yet many exhibitors still focus almost entirely on the three days in between, leaving enormous value on the table.
This peer-to-peer session will help you activate the full ISC lifecycle across three actionable phases: pre-show campaigns that build anticipation and prime your audience before they even land in Hamburg; on-floor strategies that cut through the noise and drive real, meaningful engagement with a highly technical crowd; and post-show follow-up that converts conversations into customers and one-time visitors into long-term advocates.
But activating ISC's full potential goes deeper than campaigns. The exhibitors who win year after year aren't just running smarter marketing, we are building communities that keep showing up. Drawing on first-hand experience growing BeeGFS into the HPC community's parallel filesystem of choice, we'll explore how grassroots initiatives, user group meetings, BoF sessions, and peer-driven knowledge exchanges that help create the kind of loyalty and visibility that no marketing budget can simply buy.
Whether you're stepping onto the ISC floor for the first time or looking to sharpen a strategy you've been running for years, this session delivers honest lessons, practical takeaways, and plenty of space to share what's worked, and of course, what hasn't.
Format:
Phase 1: Show Up: The Pre-Show Game (10 mins)
Opening: Audience will be asked to write down their answer to the following question which will be collected by a BeeGFS team members:
"What's the best, or worst, booth engagement tactic you've ever seen at ISC or at another event or tradeshow?
session:
- Why many exhibitors arrive at a tradeshow like ISC already behind
- Building anticipation: campaigns, content and outreach before Hamburg
- Quick personal examples from BeeGFS pre-show approach
Interactive Audience Question:
- For exhibitors and sponsors in the room: What's the earliest you've started your pre-show campaign? Shout it out." (Quick, energising, sets up peer exchange)
- For everyone in the room: How many people utalize the networking App before the show to book meetings / check out exhibitors - show of hands.
Phase 2: Stand Out: The On-Floor Strategy (8 mins)
- Cutting through the noise with a highly technical HPC audience
- What actually drives booth engagement vs what looks good on paper
- Messaging, demos, conversations, quality over quantity
- Interactive Audience Question: For attendees in the room: How far in advance do you start researching which exhibitors you want to visit at ISC? Show of hands: 2 weeks before, 1 week before, not at all, just arrive and walk around?
Phase 3: Stick Around: Post-Show & Community Building (8 mins)
- Why the fortune is in the follow-up, and why most of us don't do it well
- Converting post-show conversations into long-term relationships
- The BeeGFS story: from file system to community of choice, user group meetings, BoF sessions, peer knowledge exchanges
- How community building creates loyalty and visibility that campaigns simply can't buy
Phase 4:
The Hot Seat Panel session: Lessons Learned + Your Live Responses 15-Minute | Troy, Cristin Merritt & Daria Mergler. You spoke, now let's unpack it. Troy, Cristin, and Daria bring their candid event experiences to the stage, wins, failures, and everything in between, then dive straight into the audience pulse check results from the opening question "What's the best, or worst, booth engagement tactic you've ever seen at ISC or at another event or tradeshow?
Wrap up and Final Audience moment: (4 mins)
"Has anyone here built a user community around their product or technology? What was the one thing that made it work?" shout it out? (Invites rich peer experience into the room)
This peer-to-peer session will help you activate the full ISC lifecycle across three actionable phases: pre-show campaigns that build anticipation and prime your audience before they even land in Hamburg; on-floor strategies that cut through the noise and drive real, meaningful engagement with a highly technical crowd; and post-show follow-up that converts conversations into customers and one-time visitors into long-term advocates.
But activating ISC's full potential goes deeper than campaigns. The exhibitors who win year after year aren't just running smarter marketing, we are building communities that keep showing up. Drawing on first-hand experience growing BeeGFS into the HPC community's parallel filesystem of choice, we'll explore how grassroots initiatives, user group meetings, BoF sessions, and peer-driven knowledge exchanges that help create the kind of loyalty and visibility that no marketing budget can simply buy.
Whether you're stepping onto the ISC floor for the first time or looking to sharpen a strategy you've been running for years, this session delivers honest lessons, practical takeaways, and plenty of space to share what's worked, and of course, what hasn't.
Format:
Phase 1: Show Up: The Pre-Show Game (10 mins)
Opening: Audience will be asked to write down their answer to the following question which will be collected by a BeeGFS team members:
"What's the best, or worst, booth engagement tactic you've ever seen at ISC or at another event or tradeshow?
session:
- Why many exhibitors arrive at a tradeshow like ISC already behind
- Building anticipation: campaigns, content and outreach before Hamburg
- Quick personal examples from BeeGFS pre-show approach
Interactive Audience Question:
- For exhibitors and sponsors in the room: What's the earliest you've started your pre-show campaign? Shout it out." (Quick, energising, sets up peer exchange)
- For everyone in the room: How many people utalize the networking App before the show to book meetings / check out exhibitors - show of hands.
Phase 2: Stand Out: The On-Floor Strategy (8 mins)
- Cutting through the noise with a highly technical HPC audience
- What actually drives booth engagement vs what looks good on paper
- Messaging, demos, conversations, quality over quantity
- Interactive Audience Question: For attendees in the room: How far in advance do you start researching which exhibitors you want to visit at ISC? Show of hands: 2 weeks before, 1 week before, not at all, just arrive and walk around?
Phase 3: Stick Around: Post-Show & Community Building (8 mins)
- Why the fortune is in the follow-up, and why most of us don't do it well
- Converting post-show conversations into long-term relationships
- The BeeGFS story: from file system to community of choice, user group meetings, BoF sessions, peer knowledge exchanges
- How community building creates loyalty and visibility that campaigns simply can't buy
Phase 4:
The Hot Seat Panel session: Lessons Learned + Your Live Responses 15-Minute | Troy, Cristin Merritt & Daria Mergler. You spoke, now let's unpack it. Troy, Cristin, and Daria bring their candid event experiences to the stage, wins, failures, and everything in between, then dive straight into the audience pulse check results from the opening question "What's the best, or worst, booth engagement tactic you've ever seen at ISC or at another event or tradeshow?
Wrap up and Final Audience moment: (4 mins)
"Has anyone here built a user community around their product or technology? What was the one thing that made it work?" shout it out? (Invites rich peer experience into the room)
Format
on-site
