Like a lot of people, I got invited to Tony Perkins' AO2005: The Innovation Summit. Looking at the list of speakers, it's a conference that I'd definitely attend if the National Post had a bigger travel budget. The invitation got me thinking about how the high-tech conference world seems have been brought back to life. It wasn't that long ago that attendance at conferences was dwindling as companies scaled back their marketing and travel budgets. Some shows such as Comdex Las Vegas lost their mojo and disappeared, while others scaled back. These days, however, there seems to be renewed interest in conferences. Maybe letting employees get away for a few days is an effective tool companies are using to reward people with something other than money. Maybe high-profile senior executives believe speaking at these shows is a strategic necessity given intense competition. Perhaps conference organizers have become smarter in putting on shows that really have value rather than competing for who can have the most booths. One of the trends I've have noticed is smaller show with excellent speakers. It seems to be based on the idea people will pay a premium price - not including the cost of travel and accomodation, if the speakers are first-rate and there are good forums to discuss new ideas. The Canadian Telecom Summit, for example, was a three-day industry bonanza featuring many of the leading Canadian telecom executives - along with a handful of U.S. executives (Michael Capellas, Jeffrey Citron). For people who shelled out $1000 to $2000 to attend, it was probably well worth the money. With conferences making a comeback, the big concern is that too many fee-hungry organizers will jump on the bandwagon and ruin the party. Just this week in Toronto, there was yet a VOIP conference with many of the same speakers who had appeared at VON Canada a month earlier. Not surprisingly, it was lightly attended.