Is This the West Coast's Top PR Event of the Year?

The PR industry has typically had a serious East Coast slant, mostly for good reason, and that means the biggest PR events usually happen in New York or Washington. Many of the biggest companies in the world are located in the Northeast Corridor, as is the stock exchange, the capital, and the media industry. Here in the West, we have Silicon Valley and Hollywood, and that's about all.

For the past couple of years, I've been involved with PRSA's Silicon Valley Chapter, and our big event of the year is "Media Predicts," a lively dinner, networking opportunity and panel discussion of predictions for next year in technology. It's on Wednesday, Dec. 2 at the Computer History Museum, and it draws 300 people and dozens of top tech PR agencies and corporate PR departments.

This year, we've added two new wrinkles -- an opening stand-up comedy monologue by name-brand comic Will Durst, and a "Student Silent Auction" in which top PR students from San Jose State are auctioning themselves off [proceeds to their school's PR program] to be PR interns at agencies or companies.

As my title implies, I think this is turning into the top must-attend event in PR on the West Coast, assuming you have a business interest in technology [and these days, who doesn't?]. It's a see-and-be-seen opportunity for the tech PR community, which is especially valuable in this Twittering/Facebooking/email world of impersonal communications.

Here's the list of tech media speakers, followed by a list of the companies who have already signed up to sponsor this event and host tables. For more information, go to the PRSA Silicon Valley page or the registration page.

• Ben Worthen, Wall Street Journal & Digits


• Brad Stone, New York Times & Bits Blog


• Byron Acohido, USA Today, LastWatchDog


• Connie Guglielmo, Bloomberg News


• Matt Marshall, VentureBeat & DEMO


• Om Malik, GigaOM


• Steven Levy, WIRED


• Jim Goldman, CNBC (moderator)


• Duffy Jennings, SFGate (emcee)

Sponsors so far:

Premier Event Sponsor:

• Yahoo

Platinum:

• Microsoft


• SAP

Gold:

• Blanc & Otus


• Market Wire


• Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide


• Trainer Communications


• Weber Shandwick

Bronze:

• Access Communications


• A&R Edelman


• Brunswick


• Dell


• Eastwick


• Fleishman-Hillard


• BusinessWire


• SanDisk


• Voce


• Waggener Edstrom