Yes, it was that time again. Time for the 2 day January board meeting.
The January meeting is traditionally held in Tampa (FL). This allows us to avoid snow blizzards in Boston and saves the group quite a bit of money as Bob C. does not have to travel.
(I don't complain, I had my yearly Tampa outside pool swim)
The January board meeting's big topic is to lay out the session schedule for the Fall Conference.
The first step is to come up with topics that you and of course SDL would like to see covered.
The feedback we get from you all from the previous conference is a big help in this process. We read through all your comments and suggestion and try to listen very carefully. (so keep filling out those session and conference surveys!). We also discuss what topics will be hot by the time the conference is held and try very hard to come up with new ideas.
Once we have enough sessions, the next big task is to lay out the different tracks. The problem here is to avoid conflicts between topics and presenters. For this, we use a particular and high-tech technique that we have crafted and refined over the years.
This technique can be admired in the picture below
And yes, I blurred the picture a bit in order not to spoil all the fun 
The final acid test we use, is that every board member tries to lay out a complete track for him/herself. This year nobody had any trouble finding enough interesting sessions. Rather the opposite, a lot of times we wanted to attend 2 sessions that catched our interest.
All in all, we are particularly proud about this year's result.
We are ready for the best conference ever...
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4 users commented on " Preparing the 2010 conference "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackIMHO, this was indeed one of the best Board meetings in the past several years. Much was accomplished and this year’s Fall Conference promises to be one of the best ever!
The conference will be held at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel in downtown Boston, 4-6 October. Mini-clinics, registration and a welcome reception will be on Sunday, October 3.
Details will be available in late May, so mark your calendars now!
Bob C
Oh and in case you are wondering about the 1 and 2 red dots you see in the XPP sessions:
1 dot = beginner
2 dots = advanced
As the “elder statesman” (or perhaps just elder) of the Board I can attest to a vast improvement in this process. My first planning meeting was in 1995 and lasted 3 days as we tried to put together a conference for XPP, PDM and Contex. This year’s conference appears to be the best we have planned to date with new material and old favorites. There is even the rumor that a Board Member from the largest “independent publisher of information and analysis products for professionals in business and government” will be presenting.
Looking forward to seeing everyone in Boston in October.
Chuck Dombek
WKHealth
One week on and I am still excited about the programme for the Fall Conference – there are some exciting new sessions which we hope you will find interesting. The only problem I had, was chosing which session I want to attend – the solution – make sure another attendee comes from your company so you can cover all the sessions that are of interest – that way you don’t miss out.
I am also pleased to report that with five Board Members who had not attended a January meeting before, of which three were attending their first ever XyUser board meeting, there was lots of new ideas and suggestions. I know that in the forthcoming meetings we will benefit from the influx of these new people.
The Board is up to its maximum in size for the first time in a while which is a really positive sign for the future so thank you to all those who attended the recent meeting. The next meeting is held at the same time as the SPC meeting – looking forward to seeing acqaintances old and new then.
Chris Leggett
Letterpart