What a lucky Escape – from the IBM Technical Conference in Vilnius

An update on my preparations for attending the Common Europe Congress in Krakow, flights (very inexpensive) booked, hotel (again – very inexpensive) reserved and appetite for learning - intense.

I have been emailed a confirmation reference number for my delegate participation and this even allows me to select ahead of arrival the specific agenda selection I will attend and print out my personal training schedule of sessions - how brilliant is that? I am very impressed.

Co-incidentally I bumped in to a colleague this week who had attended the IBM midrange event held in Vilnius, Lithuania the week before. He was very jealous of the arrangements that I described for the Common Event. Apparently none of the ‘pre attendance’ arrangements had been offered and the entire event was very much an IBM Business Partner ‘internal’ event. As a customer he said he felt like an ‘outsider’ who perhaps should not have been there!

He commented very negatively regarding the delegate fee he had paid and costs associated with his attendance, believing it to have been poor value for money and his attendance as a customer just made him as ‘easy and obvious’ target to the expo companies and business partners attending. The sessions were not as useful he felt - compared to his previous attendances at a Common Europe event.

I tried as hard as possible to hide my smiles as we left the meeting and went separate ways - but could not help feeling a little ‘comfortable’ with my choice of IBM Midrange event to attend this year.

Busy checking out the Common Europe Conference in Krakow

Well, the Common Europe Conference agenda for Krakow just seems to be getting better and better.  Recent changes and additions make the trip seem even more worthwhile. There are quite a few non IBM speakers, covering all my topics of immediate concern, so I should get quite an unbiased set of views. The IBM experts are of course also going to be there, so plenty of opportunity to compare notes.

As usual the organisation seems perfect. As soon as I registered I received a confirmation email, and choosing a hotel was made very straight forward. Another major reason for choosing the Common Europe event over the IBM event in May is the length of time away from the office, two days for the user group event, four for the IBM event. Both events seem to be covering the same areas.

The opportunities to talk to the speakers look very well arranged, and focussed on me the delegate. I understand that the tea/coffee breaks are all in shared areas so that delegates and speakers can mix freely, at other IBM events I have attended the speakers tended to run away after their sessions to catch up on email etc., away from the delegates.

On a social note, I was really amazed to find out what is on offer at the user group event. To make sure that delegates go home with a taste of Krakow, there is an evening social in and around the city highlighting all the main areas of interest and also a conference gala dinner, to be held in a salt mine, certainly a ‘first’ for me. The welcome party on the first evening should make an excellent opportunity to meet like other like-minded delegates and exchange bits of information and recent experiences.

I also got a major ‘pleasant’ shock when booking my airfare, Krakow it turns out is an easy and well served airport destination and therefore prices are very competitive. So my budget for attending the entire event including delegate fee and accommodation is much less than anticipated for attending a commercial educational event. My boss will be happy!

System i Customer Diary

I got approval to attend an IBM midrange educational event – now to track down my best options…..

What a good piece of fortune, we have a really busy period of activity later this year with our iSeries, oops sorry – System i, oops again – our IBM midrange, Power platform. So how to prepare and make sure I have all the correct skills and knowledge to ‘make it all happen’? I sat down with my manager and we decided I needed to attend a midrange educational event that would prepare me for what was coming. Not an open ended budget you understand, just a solid piece of training/education and of course the opportunity to meet with other like minded souls and compare notes/swap tips and techniques.

Initial research showed that IBM has an event scheduled for May in Lithuania, must check this out, although I have always found that the user group, Common Europe, run a quality educational meeting around that time too.

What I discovered when I sifted through the information simply astounded me. Let’s start with the agenda (after all that is what it is all about). Both conference agendas look very similar in composition and speakers. There seemed to be very little detail in the IBM agenda. There were fuller details in the C E agenda for their event in Krakow. However, after a good review, there was little to separate them. But hold on, the IBM event costs 1,750 Euros to sign up to, the C E event only 550 Euros!  That is a big difference. The volunteer user group certainly offer great value for money.

Then I studied the advertising text carefully, the IBM event is targeted at Business Partners, not customers at all – in fact it feels like being a customer at their event would make me easy ‘prey’ for the BPs and ISV guys!  It would certainly seem in comparison I can talk in a relaxed and informal way to my fellow professionals at the Common Europe Event

No prizes then for guessing which event I will be signing up for ………………