October Rules Fest (ORF)

I spoke with the other directors of the ORF and it seems that ORF is filling up more quickly than anticipated. We now have another Silver Sponsor (thanks to Dr. Forgy of Production Systems Technology) and a few of the Bronze sponsors have moved up to Silver. Visual Rules is still the # 1 sponsor (Gold) but we are anticipating a Diamond sponsor from a major vendor as soon as marketing finishes up their annual budget and allocates the funds. Such is life in the fast lane. :-) We're negotiating with a major hotel chain for decent room rates as well as a large conference room, bar, restaurant, workout gym, etc., so that you won't have to go anywhere for anything unless you just HAVE to sample a bit of the real Wild, Wild West. We'll know by Tuesday if we have it secured or not.

The conference has guests and speakers from around the world right now; several from the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Columbia and, of course, many from all over the USA. Where else would you get a chance to meet and greet (and have a few drinks with) the major thought leaders in the rulebased community. I look at the signup list and then at the speaker list and it begins to dwell on the unreal - some of the attendees alone would be honored guests at any other conference dealing with rulebased systems. And our speakers are the creme de la creme de la creme. One speaker said that this might well be the "Woodstock of Rulebased Systems". Another likened it to the 1956 (it isn't anywhere near that level) conference at Dartmouth College where the term AI was first used.

What we really need at ORF is a really good PR guy who could tell the world what is happening here in a way that would help folks understand that this is "must attend" event. And with a price tag of only $150, why not? This will be better than attending any five-day or ten-day school hosted by any one vendor. These speakers are the people who invented all this stuff !! Check out http://www.rulesfest.org/OctoberRulesFest/Speakers.html and look at their credentials: The very people who invented Rete, Rete 2, Rete III, CLIPS, Drools, Advisor, Open Rules, OPSJ, CLIPS/R2 as well as the chief engineers and scientist from all of the major vendors. I have only one comment:

Sign up now or there might not be room later.

SDG
jco

Blogs, Blogs and More Blogs

I added another blog to the list today - it's by Carole-Ann Beriotz-Matignon, VP at Fair isaac. She continues the EDM blog started by (probably) Paul Vincent that was continued by James Taylor and now Carole-Ann. I could be wrong about Paul. All in all, the blog isn't bad as far as commercial blogs go, but I think that she could add so much more.

I know her personally since she was my boss for almost six months. She seems to be quite quite political in her blogs since all of them reflect heavily on Fair Isaac as a corporate entity - but she could contribute so much more. Blogs on how to extract rules, blogs on letting business users control the rules (always a bad idea) and blogs on business intelligence; these are all good. But what about blogs on really technical problems that plague users or a blog on how to solve problems or a blog on theory of mathematical relationship of rules and objects or a blog on benchmarks?

Carole-Ann has it within her ability, more so I would think than any of her predecessors, to tackle the thorny issues of our industry and get really dirty with mathematical solutions and problems. Only a few other persons at Fair Isaac have her ability to closely analyze problems and arrive at solutions. One is her partner in crime, her former boss, Carlos Serrano-Morales, one of the originators of Blaze Advisor back when we all worked for Neuron Data. Another is Don Tallo, a brilliant AI guy from the old days.

I think that the Fair Isaac folks are treading lightly because of the layoffs and, maybe, fear of getting their heads chopped off if they stick them up too high. Well, live a little - after all, you only go round once in life. Step out and give us a reason to comment on the blog - something that is actually controversial, something with some "bite" in it.

BTW, both Carole-Ann and Carlos will be presenting at the October Rules Fest this year.

SDG
jco
Founder and Director for the October Rules Fest http://rulesfest.org