I had a great time at Insights this year. The highlight for me was the customer-led sessions, and meeting up with many of you fellow EpiUsers in person.
On Thursday afternoon several of us sat around by the pizza place on the Delta island having some good conversation, and I think my feelings were shared by several others. We talked about how cool it could be to have a user-organized “conference” that focused on that comradery and users teaching users.
So I’m out on my property this weekend and I hear…
So I’m gauging interest… would anyone consider coming to Iowa for an EpiUsers conference held in a round barn? We recently put a new roof on it and are currently planning on building rooms on the inside. It could actually make a cool venue…
Well, you know I’m in. I think we can bake this a little further and come up with a schedule… maybe one that a workplace would approve of.
In the meantime, based on interest, I can contact local breweries and restaurants to figure out how to feed people. I already have some ideas (and yes, dietary considerations are important to me).
I can also talk to the local hotels to see if I can secure some group rates, but again, that would need to be based on headcount.
Let’s come up with a schedule of classes/training/discussions/demos. I think that we can also arrange a tour of our facility if that is of interest.
This is at least a year away, if it ever becomes real. I’m just seeing how many would even entertain the idea. It’s just fun to dream about at this point.
I love it. This is how it used to be, even before my time:
But I do remember many of the popular ones like the Boston Computer Society (BCS), DECUS (DEC Minicomputer), and Interex - The HP Users Group. All of these were run by users through BBSs, email lists, and periodically in person.
Vendors were invited and were located in the sponsored area. Eventually, the amount of money the vendors supplied allowed them to dictate more and more until they took over the events.
I would be remiss not to mention that this is the stated goal of the Epicor User’s Group. Despite having some really hard-working volunteers, it has not become the vision you have proposed - for reasons. Ironically, as I’m sure it started with a group of people chatting around a meal…
Now don’t take me as poo-pooing the idea, because I’m not. I learned so much at Insights just sitting down with all you great people and chit-chatting.
However, I’m struggling to figure out what we’d do, and how we’d structure it.
If I’m able, I’ll probably come even if it’s a bunch of us chasing chickens around in a field.
Anyone got any ideas on what kind of things would be of interest at a smaller, more informal event like this?
I’m with Andrew, user-led sessions like yours and the EpiUser session as well as what we usually see at regional EUG groups like Wisconsin’s, etc. I can also see more open discussions about strategies for staying up to date, software architecture, infrastructure challenges with on-prem/hybrid/cloud, better security practices, etc.
Separately, I’ve been a part of a group of HP users who did this very thing and ran it as an “un-conference.” The first night we would write topics on the board, rank them by time limit, and the next day start down the list and people presented ideas and others would respond. This was my first exposure to DevOps by someone who did it for NetFlix Comcast (Sorry). It’s insane the number of VMs they spin up per second.
We’ve kicked this idea around for quite a while here on the forum.
EUG does some of this already the most successful one being the EMUG and the Wisconsin User Group one.
The biggest deterrent so far has been funds and time. As @Mark_Wonsil said vendors can help with the funds bit, but the second you take their money it becomes a little iffy.
