Expo Trip Report
I got home last night after traveling east all day. It's good to be home, but I had a very enjoyable trip.
One of the highlights of the trip had to be the thread dinner on Friday evening. It was the largest gathering we have had to date, with nearly 25 people in attendance. I enjoyed the self introductions around the table, where each of us had a chance to share a little about ourselves with the group. My only disappointment with the evening was struggling with a little jet lag and having to call it a night at about 10PM. I was worn out... I'm already looking forward to meeting with an even larger group from the thread in New York in February. One interesting note: It was pointed out that our thread dinner had one tutorial speaker at the first Expo (Tony Oz), two speakers in New York (Tony, Alan) and three speakers at this Expo (Tony, Alan, Eric). Steve (Palo Alto) has already expressed interest in joining the group and being a speaker in New York... Eventually, our thread may constitute the bulk of the Expo tutorial speakers...
The Expo exhibit area was much larger this year than at the original Expo in Ontario. Altogether, there were roughly 130 exhibitors and 3000+ attendees, versus the ~80 exhibitors and ~2300 attendees last year. The Expo seemed to be a great success. The larger number of booths and longer duration (three days, versus two) seemed to make the exhibit area less crowded and more inviting.
For me, the biggest disappointment of the weekend was networking dinner Saturday evening. The food was mediocre (considering the $65 price tag) and the panel discussion was somewhat boring and poorly moderated. I eventually left before the panel discussion ended. This discussion was good for some (unintended) laughs, as pointed out by Alan and Steve.
I was able to sit in on parts of many of the tutorial, including the ones given by Alan, Tony Oz and Rogan LaBier. All of them seemed to be informative and well received.
This was my first Expo with a speaking role, and I was wondering whether I would be nervous as my hour approached. One of my fellow speakers suggested that I imagine MYSELF naked, but that didn't seem to help <g>. Overall, however, I enjoyed giving my tutorial to ~85 people. There was plenty of questions and was a fairly lively bunch. About a dozen folks stayed afterwards to ask a few more questions. I plugged our thread shamelessly, but didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about it, since it is great... and free to read.
Another interesting note was the TradePortal drawing for the new Mercedes. Apparently, they had about 1600 people that filled out entry forms for the free drawing and the big event drew a large crowd. You needed to be in at the drawing to win. Anyway, with big fanfare, they drew the winning name and... drum roll, please... The 'winner' was not present. After a minute or two and no one stepping up to claim the prize, they drew another name... Still not in attendance. I would guess their were several hundred people crowded around, but they continued drawing names for almost 30 minutes, until finally, the 13th name was drawn and some excited individual stepped up to claim the car. I heard this story secondhand, since I was unable to make the drawing. I was very relieved to hear that my name was NOT one of the first 12 called... However, the drawing definitely seemed to be a great success for Merrick and the folks at TradePortal.
I'm looking forward to the next gathering in New York.
-Eric |
