Wrapping Up The ESRI New Zealand User Conference 2008

The last few weeks have been pretty full on preparing for the ESRI New Zealand User Conference 2008. The ESRI New Zealand User Conference 2008 kicked off early last week in a very sunny Rotorua.

Most of the team gathered in Rotorua on Sunday in preparation for the Monday morning workshops. Newly added to this years schedule were pre-conference workshops. The workshops were run in three hour sessions with breaks, lunches and networking drinks provided. These paid workshops proved to be a big hit with a number of users submitting some great feedback.

After successful round of workshops, the focus changed to the main plenary session. The keynote speaker from our end was Terry Bills. Terry is the Transportation Industry Manager at ESRI. Terry delivered a great keynote touching on a number of the points that Jack Dangermond focused on in his speech earlier this year at the ESRI International User Conference 2008. The technical part of the main plenary session was delivered by Anthony Burgon and myself. Anthony is the ArcMap Program Manager at ESRI. Anthony talked about some of the new enhancements in ArcGIS 9.3, what’s coming in ArcGIS 9.3.1 and what the plan is for ArcGIS 9.4. I showcased some of the new enhancements focusing on the new server based aspects of ArcGIS 9.3. I showcased a number of the new API’s including the just released ArcGIS 9.3 Flex API.

After lunch it was into full swing with sessions taking place. I delivered an afternoon session on Building Mashups Using ArcGIS Server. Once again a well attended session and great feedback from everyone. The session showcased and talked about some of the new technologies that can be used to develop some powerful lightweight viewing applications.

Thinking that Wednesday was a day off and I had some time to sit in on some of the sessions changed very quickly. I ended up sitting down with various customers and discussing problems/solutions/showcasing some of our technology. This was actually really good because there were some happy customers afterwards. Something I like seeing

Wednesday evening saw everyone gearing up for the dinner. The dinner this year was held at the restaurant up at the Skyline Gondola in Rotorua. This was something different and allowed those that arrived before the dinner to partake in luging. Lots of fun! The dinner went very well and everyone was kept entertained throughout the evening. Best costume went to Ryan Clements for being a “Sheep Shagger”. Awesome costume Ryan!

After the prize giving, the DJ started cranking the tunes and lots of people hit the dance floor until it was time to leave and those keen individuals ended up in town.

Thursday morning was tough. An early start, coffee and a presentation to deliver on ArcGIS Mobile. I was impressed at the number of attendees that made it to this early morning session. In this session we showcased the capabilities of ArcGIS Mobile. Immediately following this session I had a my last two presentations for the UC. This was an overview and demonstration of a new product that we are selling in New Zealand, Dekho. Dekho is a product from ESRI Australia that allows users to tie information from a number of different data sources in a very easy to use, configurable  and intuitive web interface. More information on Dekho can be found on the ESRI Australia website.

By this stage the pack up had begun with vendors hard at work breaking down their stands. Fatigue was kicking in and I was looking forward to heading back home!

It was tiring but great week up in Rotorua. Thanks to everyone for attending and making it such a successful UC. The feedback and comments received were outstanding. If you have any other comments, suggestions or feedback we would love to know. We have created a feedback form for the UC which can be found here: http://www.eaglegis.co.nz/forms/…

Thanks for everyone once again and I hope to see you at the ESRI New Zealand User Conference 2009!