LCTY London and Edinburgh 2010
This year's Edinburgh LCTY event is drawing
to a close and as the penultimate sessions run it gives a chance for reflection
on the event in London on Tuesday, plus today's event and the chaos with
flights home.
London's venue was the exceptional new Grange St Paul's hotel which apparently had only just been finished in time for the show. Unfortunately, LCTY was in the basement which meant the mobile reception was patchy at best. Turnout was very impressive with over 400 attendees officially passing through the door, though the number surely includes the numerous IBMers that attend these events. With the business partners sited around the expo in alphabetical order, our Teamstudio pedestal happened to be sited by the kitchen/dish washing area which meant that many discussions were punctuated with the tinkling of broken glass and china. Unfortunate and noisy, but not a great hindrance and one that couldn't really be avoided unless we changed our company name. We still did get to see many familiar faces at the booth including Mick Moignard and Tony Campbell-Cooke amongst others as well as seeing Darren Adams, Bill Buchan, Mike Smith and Alexia Mizzi around during the day.
The talk on the stand was mainly about Unplugged. version 1.0 was released last week and it seems that everyone wants to free their apps. We had some very positive discussions about Gedys CRM with people looking for an integrated solution who have outgrown their own built system that has been creaking along for x years. In terms of our prize draw this year, we had a HD Flip video camera to give away and it proved to be a popular prize judging by the number of business cards we collected.
As the sessions finished and Professor Brian Cox entertained and informed as he did at Lotusphere, the wine starting flowing for the drinks reception and we finally got a chance to rest our weary feet and started looking forward to the flight to Edinburgh the next day..
Edinburgh's event had another wonderful venue in the Balmoral hotel. This time we weren't herded underground but had a wonderful view out over Waverley station and the royal mile beyond it. Of course, we were the lucky ones in that we had actually arrived, but return flights would not be happening so while sessions were on we busily discussed options surrounding hire cars and staying an extra night, before concluding that a train journey was best for us. Maybe Mother Nature is a Micro$oft house and her Icelandic Exchange server crashed spewing volcanic ash across Northern Europe.
Whether it was the eruption or some other factor, but the product expo was very quiet in the morning. Thankfully it picked up around lunchtime and there was a steady stream of conversations as well as the mad rush during breaks. Again, the majority of conversations centred around Unplugged and mobile applications. Darren was around again via Dublin, as was Mike who was joined by Gabriella & Tim Davis on the ILUG stand. Seeing Matt Buchanan & Scott Cochrane for the first time since one of the Scottish User Group meetings was great too.
Baroness Manningham-Buller performed the draw for Flip HD camera and the winner was someone from LCTY in London who may not know yet, so I won't announce it here. After the draw, we hastily packed up our oversized box of literature and freebies and hot footed it down to the station to get a 7pm train home.
London's venue was the exceptional new Grange St Paul's hotel which apparently had only just been finished in time for the show. Unfortunately, LCTY was in the basement which meant the mobile reception was patchy at best. Turnout was very impressive with over 400 attendees officially passing through the door, though the number surely includes the numerous IBMers that attend these events. With the business partners sited around the expo in alphabetical order, our Teamstudio pedestal happened to be sited by the kitchen/dish washing area which meant that many discussions were punctuated with the tinkling of broken glass and china. Unfortunate and noisy, but not a great hindrance and one that couldn't really be avoided unless we changed our company name. We still did get to see many familiar faces at the booth including Mick Moignard and Tony Campbell-Cooke amongst others as well as seeing Darren Adams, Bill Buchan, Mike Smith and Alexia Mizzi around during the day.
The talk on the stand was mainly about Unplugged. version 1.0 was released last week and it seems that everyone wants to free their apps. We had some very positive discussions about Gedys CRM with people looking for an integrated solution who have outgrown their own built system that has been creaking along for x years. In terms of our prize draw this year, we had a HD Flip video camera to give away and it proved to be a popular prize judging by the number of business cards we collected.
As the sessions finished and Professor Brian Cox entertained and informed as he did at Lotusphere, the wine starting flowing for the drinks reception and we finally got a chance to rest our weary feet and started looking forward to the flight to Edinburgh the next day..
Edinburgh's event had another wonderful venue in the Balmoral hotel. This time we weren't herded underground but had a wonderful view out over Waverley station and the royal mile beyond it. Of course, we were the lucky ones in that we had actually arrived, but return flights would not be happening so while sessions were on we busily discussed options surrounding hire cars and staying an extra night, before concluding that a train journey was best for us. Maybe Mother Nature is a Micro$oft house and her Icelandic Exchange server crashed spewing volcanic ash across Northern Europe.
Whether it was the eruption or some other factor, but the product expo was very quiet in the morning. Thankfully it picked up around lunchtime and there was a steady stream of conversations as well as the mad rush during breaks. Again, the majority of conversations centred around Unplugged and mobile applications. Darren was around again via Dublin, as was Mike who was joined by Gabriella & Tim Davis on the ILUG stand. Seeing Matt Buchanan & Scott Cochrane for the first time since one of the Scottish User Group meetings was great too.
Baroness Manningham-Buller performed the draw for Flip HD camera and the winner was someone from LCTY in London who may not know yet, so I won't announce it here. After the draw, we hastily packed up our oversized box of literature and freebies and hot footed it down to the station to get a 7pm train home.
Category conferences
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