Could those who made it to Spectrum give a little "trip report" with
highlights?

I'm headed to the Intersystems Caché DEVCON conference in a couple of
weeks (after the Datatel User Group conference in DC and a trip to
Chicago too). I think others have mentioned they will be there too,
so I suspect we can report back on DEVCON afterwards. cheers! --dawn

On Mar 9, 1:19 pm, "dawn" <dawnwolth... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
In my opinion, this was the best show in years. Attendance was only
marginally higher than in years past but I felt that the enthusiasm
and optimism was much higher. Also seemed like there were a few more
exhibitors, but then again I rarely pay much attention to the sales
side. The classes I attended were good, Mel Soriano on AJAX, Susan
Joslyn on PRC, Lee Burstein on exporting data to Excel, and I hear
that Chuck Barouch brought the house down with his sessions. There
were of course other sessions but due to other commitments I was
unable to participate in them.

Personally, I think Nathan's on the right track. There is still some
ambiguity as to whether Spectrum is a technical or non-technical
event, but knowing Nathan I'm confident that he'll find a way to make
the show work for both sides.

Overall, it was fun. And for me personally, that was the biggest
difference from years past.

"Kevin King" <kevin (AT) precisonline (DOT) com> wrote

Kevin, I didn't manage to catch you again. Maybe one year I'll actually
put your face with a name. I attended Chuck's inventory session and part of
the OOP session. As always, he's a nice source of cross-industry information
and I picked up a few new ideas for a couple of projects I'm working on. The
OOP class got a much higher audience than the inventory class did, but
unfortunately I had to bail after about 20 minutes. I picked up a couple of
neat tricks from Pete's advanced tips for Accuterm 2K2, even though he ran
out of time and didn't cover everything he wanted to. One of the main
tidbits I picked up was preventing users from closing Accuterm before they
log off.

What I really miss is the market software showings. I know that many
software houses use market-specific venues to advertise in, but it would
really be nice to have a single place to see all of the business software
that's available. A virtual software conference using web meeting technology
would be a neat test.

Glen

I would hope that all the seminars are recorded and available on the
Spectrum web site. I would certainly pay for that opportunity.

Nathan, are you listenting?

Jeff

On Mar 11, 9:03 am, "Jeff Caspari" <FDFDF... (AT) sneakernet (DOT) com.invalid>
wrote:
Jeff, that is an EXCELLENT suggestion. I'm hoping to meet with Nathan
sometime in the next month for a post-mortem on the show and if he
doesn't read it here I'll be sure to bring it up. There was a CD of
PPTs from various presenters, but nobody was recording the sessions
(that I saw, at least).

And Glen, I'm sorry we didn't connect; I'm sure there will be other
opportunities in the future. As to putting a face with the name,
that's easy: Go to precisonline-DOT-com, click on Company from the top
links, and scroll to the bottom.

Sorry, this time around I didn't get the needed tech into the rooms to
do recording of sessions the quality it needs to be. I've tried using
regular recording tools, and the quality wasn't up to the standards
needed.

I am continuing to explore this, and hope to find hardware/software
that doesn't require every presenter to install it on thier laptop and
speak clearly into a a microphone. (just to of the headaches
involved).

Nathan Rector
International Spectrum

Nathan,

It is great to see you on this forum!

Please come again, we could really use your input and comments.

Cheers

Thanks for the response Nathan.

I think you will find this will significantly expand the audience that
Spectrum reaches. I would also say that the vendors should be willing to
contribute to the cost as this will ultimately help them sell more product.
They might also use the resulting video as downloads from their own web
sites.

So you will receive revenue from the vendors and the prospects as well as
reaching a wider audience. That should give you enough funding to get a
professional solution.

That's pretty compelling.

Thanks,
Jeff

Nathan,

On Mar 12, 4:30 pm, "International Spectrum" <nat...@intl-
spectrum.com> wrote:
I have seen this done at other larger conferences like VSLive and it
is quite the production. I hope that you can find a way to do it so
that it is feasible. I think that if the audio and the slide decks
where available (thanks for the presentation CD but will those be
updated?) the combination would be a great start. Thus the question
would be how do you get the audio. I am sure you have asked that
question of yourself. I don't think you can expect a presenter to
stand at a mike but if you had wireless lapel microphones for them to
wear you will solve this problem. Please instruct presenters to
repeat questions though as they will not come through the audio. At
VSLive even the audio recording was a production!

I wish you luck!

Dick

All good info, Glen, but there are companies that do this sort of
thing as their primary business. I'd recommend Nathan spend the time
to develop a relationship with such a company, or contract with
someone who knows or can learn this stuff and won't flake out at the
11th hour. Someone who organizes a show like Spectrum should not
personally be dealing with hardware, or spending too much time to
learn about the nuances of A/V capturing or editing. And Nathan
cannot personally spend time to setup and maintain A/V equipment at
each show, prepping presenters, etc.. This is a job in itself.

I have a lot of respect for Nathan's technical skills. However, for
Spectrum I value his time even more as a coordinator, delegator, and
manager. We all _need_ Spectrum to be much more than it is, and the
only way it's going to get there is if he focuses on the bigger
picture - that doesn't include wires or software.

Regards,
T

"Glen B" wrote: