re: MAPICS Conference!

To all -

Thurs and Fri were spent putting out all the fires that erupted while I was
in Orlando, so I'm just now getting a chance to respond.

My most revealing impression of the Tech Expo is that, while there was a lot
of confusing re-branding going on, there really wasn't a lot of totally new
stuff! Just about everything being touted as essential in this year's Expo
was being touted as the latest and greatest at the Expo last year.

Second most confusing thing was the multiple listing of the same session
being offered more than once. Since some of the sessions' titles and/or
descriptions were very similar, by about page four of the session
descriptions I was going, "Have I seen this session before or not?" This
made it very hard to plan which sessions to attend when, to get the most
"bang for the buck." Last year's system was much better (session #, then A,
B, etc) - I put that comment on the overall Conference evaluation sheet.

Third most confusing thing was the actual re-branding itself (yeah, I know
it's also in the first most confusing category - it's that bad). I also
would get excited about a particular session's description, then realize it
was for Point.Man (XA Extended Edition) instead of "our" MAPICS (XA for the
iSeries). As a result, I know I missed several sessions that I had
specifically wanted to attend, just because of the name changes et. al.
Thank goodness for the CD with the presentations - it's not the same as
hearing the presentation, but it's better than nothing!

BTW, how did you other attendees like not having the Presentations in
printed form? I was dubious at first, but did appreciate not lugging the
volumes around to the sessions all day, and especially having the room in my
luggage from not having to bring them back home! (I understand that many
people at past conferences would just leave them in the trash cans on the
way out of the final session.)

The nicest thing about the user conference is to meet old friends and make
new ones! I've been fortunate to attend the conference the last three years,
so unless something miraculous happens, I doubt I'll get to go to Chicago
next year......

    -- Joan

Joan McCready, IS Manager      phone:  636-479-4499
MetalTek International               fax:  636-479-3399
The Carondelet Division             www.metaltekint.com
8600 Commercial Blvd
Pevely, MO  63070