Digital Consulting Institute
Digital Consulting Institute (DCI) was a seminar company launched in 1982 by George Schussel and his wife Sandi from their home in Massachusetts. It evolved out of a series of database seminars taught by George Schussel in the 1970s. Early development In the early 1980s the United States was coming out of a steep recession, and the DCI company grew quickly as demand for improved knowledge about the use of information technology (IT) soared. Experts in other IT fields were drawn to DCI as a way to spread knowledge about the IT discipline. Success DCI's business model underwent two significant paradigm shifts in the two decades following its inception. In the late 1980s, the company began to launch larger multi-speaker conferences. Then, around 1990, DCI began to serve a larger constituency by sponsoring trade show expositions as well as educational events. This expansion of DCI's model was responsible for dramatic growth experienced in the 1990s. In 1990 the company moved into the historic Ballardvale Mill (1835) in Andover, Massachusetts. At the mill, DCI experienced good fortune as the company's revenues grew from $12 million to $45 million during the 1990s. DCI produced an average of 120 seminar, conference, and exposition