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with some of the final references being in movies of the new millenium like Men in Black starring President Smith, the 51st president of the United States.

The Wasatch Business Conference (WABCON)

Created in 2005 by two business minded software developers from Wasatch Development Studios, The Wasatch Business Conference or WABCON, was a business education event created from the two greatest necessities of entreprenuership: experience and opportunity.

In 2005, Bryce Nielsen and Enoch Chapman were frustrated entering the business world in Utah Valley. As new small business owners they were looking for opportunities to learn about techniques and tricks to help their business improve. They ventured into the realm of workshops and seminars, but found an interesting tactic used by many training groups. Most of the educational workshops they attended gave small amounts of useful information and spent most of the time giving a sales pitch about the presenters offerings. These experiences lead to two thoughts: "How do we start training people without the sales pitch?" and "What are the topics that people need to hear?".

Brainstorming sessions started between the two experts. Since they consulted with both small business and Fortune 500 companies a number of topics started forming. Topics in Finance, Legal, Technology and Marketing started pouring out of their heads. Two problems became aparent during their brainstorming sessions. The first problem was there were too many topics for an hour long presentation. They determined that an all day event would be the best way to disseminate the information. This way they could inform business owners about tools needed to gain greater success in their daily activities.

The second problem they discovered was not the number of topics people were interested in hearing, but how they could be seen as experts in these topics. They slowly realized that if they were going to give presentations in the areas needed for business they would need to partner with other local experts.

It was during this time that they sought out two industry experts in the Utah Valley area. Alan Boyer was an extremely successful financial planner in the Utah Valley area. Enoch mentioned the idea of an all day conference where local experts would give presentations geared towards pure information, no sales pitches. Alan thought the idea was a much needed necessity and wanted to participate. He mentioned that his contacts with legal and finance people could fill out that area with experts that would give presentations in the same train of thought as Bryce and Enoch.

When looking for a person to handle the marketing presentations of the conference only one person was sought out: Bryan Waldon Pope. Bryan, the architect of "The 7 Pillars of Successful Marketing" system, was creating a program similar to the thoughts and ideas of the ensuing conference. After a moment of discussion with Bryce and Enoch, Bryan decided that this was an opportunity needed in the Wasatch Front. With his contacts, Bryan mentioned that he would be able to find experts in the field of marketing to fill out the track.

And so a day long conference was born with presenters in different areas of technology, finance and marketing. The first conference was set for the third Thursday of October in 2005 with 18 breakout sessions and a free lunch with the presenters. This design was flawed because of lack of starting and ending to the event. During the second year a closing keynote presenter as added to the conference to close the event with a big bang. Featured keynote presenters have been Dian Thomas, Mark Eaton, Roger Anthony, Ron Zeller, etc. During the third year of the conference and opening ceremonies were added to give the conference a successful opening. The fifth year, the conference opted to turn the opening ceremonies into an opening keynote presentation. Making the final conference design 2 keynote presentations, 12 breakout sessions and lunch with the presenters. 

The design was to create the conference to be FREE for attendees. After two years of the conference being free it was discovered to not be financially feasible and during the third year the conference creators decided to put a cost for the conference. Even with the cost being added the same design to be affordable was still applied. Each presenter donated their time for the presentations, Sponsors were still sought out to keep costs low and back of room sales were added to give greater incentives for presenters.

With concessions made to keep costs low there was a fear that integrity would begin to fade with the conference. Because of that there was a strict "No Sales Pitch" rule held to all of the presenters of the conference. If this rule was violated then a blacklist policy was placed on the presenter for future events. Unfortunatly, a number of presenters have been added to this list and have never been asked to present again for the Wasatch Business Conference events.

Because of integrity and variation, no presenter, outside of conference directors, were asked to present more than two years in a row. Also, the direction of presenters were moved away from the initial four creators to a Conference Board of Directors made up of twelve individuals interested in keeping the direction of Wasatch Business Community and Wasatch Business Conference alive and functioning. The board would review proposed presentations and individuals given through the Board secretary.

Just like most great events, an end must come. The Final WABCON went out like it started, bigger than the organizers predicted. The audience became smaller, but the information was impressive and educational. The closing of the conference Enoch Chapman stated that it was his honor and pleasure to bring an experience that launched over a dozen different educational events as well as helped hundreds of businesses achieve greater success.

In his closing remarks Enoch said,

"The opportunity to help business be successful is something that can only be described as akin to writing a great symphony. You have themes and melodies that interweave together. You have inititories and cadences that start and stop mid way through an idea and give you new directions to your initial design. Some symphonies are unfinished and some symphonies end triumphantly. Today we complete a symphony written of amazing human melodies themed in business desires. Thank you for letting me take a moment of my life to participate in these overtones. May our harmonies cross paths soon and our themes enhance each other once more."