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Chris Shipley knows a winning technology when she sees it. With her control over two of the highest-profile trade conferences in the business, Shipley's imprimatur can seal a budding company's success.
That's why nearly 500 start-ups beat a path to her door over the past year, hoping to win a coveted spot in DEMO or DEMOmobile, the two IDG-sponsored shows she has produced since 1996. An introduction at a DEMO conference is the ultimate product debut, a chance to strut your stuff for six minutes in front of scores of venture capitalists, potential industry partners, analysts and the media.
A thumbs-down from Ms. Shipley, on the other hand, can cast a company's future in doubt. In 1999, at the peak of the tech industry's boom, she and former coproducer Jim Forbes, now retired, looked at 1,800 companies before choosing roughly 60 to highlight at DEMO, which takes place in mid-February. That was also the year that mobile computing came to the fore, prompting IDG to create an off-shoot conference, DEMOmobile, which takes place in September.
Wielding this much influence is heady stuff for a former...