Ah yes, it’s that time of year – the ESRI International User Conference.

It’s a crazy event – somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 GIS people milling around the San Diego convention center talking shop and looking for free swag. Really though, I worked for companies that had large booths and significant swag budgets, and I was always stunned by those people who’d troll through with two bags full of various squish toys, pins, flyers, and pens. They’d then try to grab a stack of pens. Nah, one would not be enough – they needed thirty. What’s with these people? Does their company reimburse them based on the weight of the crap they bring home? Anyhow…

I think I attended for 10 years in a row, and presented something like a dozen papers over those years. After ESRI started the Dev Summit, I stopped attending the User Conference for two reasons:

Overwhelming

Let’s face it, with 10,000 people milling around, it’s hard enough meeting up with the people you know. Actually networking at a conference of this size is extremely difficult. Combine that with a zillion simultaneous sessions, and it’s a frantic week. Attempting to take it all in is a recipe for feeling inadequate and exhaused  (What – you’re not an expert in ArcSDE Admin on Oracle, Flex Development, third party model integration via Python with a little PLTS on the side? – how feeble!).

My advice: Pick something you are interested in (lets say Flex), hit those sessions, and then hang out at the ESRI island on that topic. Get to know the ESRI staff. Get their cards. Buy them drinks. Talk to them and make sure you build a bit of a rapport so they will remember you when you email them the next week Really though – as long as your reasonably cool, and ask intelligent questions, you can use the UC as a chance to build relationships that will allow you to side step tech support. Oh, and if you’ve been dealing with someone from tech support who really helped you out, find them and thank them. Really.

“User” Conference?

Although I presented a dozen “papers” over the years, I don’t think I was ever in a room that could hold more than 20 people. Not that it mattered, because it was about a quarter mile from the super theaters where the ESRI sessions are held. Now that slideshare.net exists, at least I could make it worthwhile by re-posting the slides there, but quite simply the user presentations are such a low priority that they are barely worth the effort. While I understand that for some agencies, being able to say that you are “presenting” at the ESRI conference is a way to get the trip approved, don’t expect an audience. Really, this is the ESRI International Marketing Conference, and most attendees seem to be ok with that.

That said, it’s always hard not being there. It’s a fun feeling being at a “big event”. The plenary session is always interesting with some kind of cool new thing and some cool demos. (on a side note – check out this time-lapse photo of Jack Dangermond preparing for the plenary). Then there are all the fun events through the week – the Regional User Group meetings, Dick’s Last Resort, map beer gallery, The Bitter End and other sundry watering holes. And this year, ESRI seems to be drinking from the social media fire hose – twitter seems to be the focus, so I’ll be following #esriuc to see what’s shaking. Not sure if there will be an IRC back channel, which is interesting to follow, but more fun if you are there.

In the end though, since I’m not with “giant corp”, and we don’t have a 30 by 30 space-ship booth and 10,000 furry globes to give away, there’s no way for me to hide the expense of attending in someone’s marketing budget. Thus, I’ll be coding away next week, but for everyone heading out (or already there) – have fun, play safe (beware the martini’s at the Bitter End) I’ll see some of you at the end on the month at GeoWeb in Vancouver!