Day One - FICO Decision Management Tools User Group

Greetings:

First day started at 13:00 but I couldn't get through traffic and arrived at 15:00. I went to the Decision Support clinic headed by Don Grice and Maarten Van Lier that started at 13:00 or so and I was so far behind that I'll have to catch up later.

The hotel is nice but the 17:30 cheese-and-wine was awesome. Lots of brisket, pasta bar, chips-and-dips, beer/wine/etc. bars made it nice. But with my bad back I could only stand up for so long. Lots of old friends there: Tom Travis, Vlad Silverman, Carole Ann Berlioz-Matignon, Carlos Seranno-Morales (Europeans are really big on double last names). Willie Hall and Mark Eastwood are supposed to arrive tomorrow.

The conference itself seems focused on business users rather than geeks. (So what am I doing here?) Several good talks lined up for today including some on Blaze Advisor and business optimization tools. My talk will be on optimizing Blaze Advisor at 16:00 today and then FICO has a river-boat tour and supper planned. I'm not sure if the PPTs or talks will be available to the general public but if they are I'll let you know. Maarten's talk last night was pretty good so I hope that they do release them to the great, unwashed masses. :-)

SDG

jco

Only Three More Days !!

Greetings:

If you want to attend the October Rules Fest AND you would like to avail yourself of the Early Bird Discount of $50, you should do so by midnight (PDT, GMT -8) THIS Friday night, July 31st. That's when it expires.

Also, remember that the first 100 attendees to sign up will get the best seating in the house. All attendees and speakers will have power outlets and WiFi available in the meeting room itself. But the first 100 or so will be two persons at a 6' (just under two meters) table.

I have said this so many times that I'm beginning to sound like a cracked record - if you're old enough to remember records made of vinyl that had a tendency to get caught in a groove and just repeat itself over and over and over... Anyway, ORF 2009 has absolutely the BEST Technical Speakers in the world. AND, these guys will be hanging around during the conference to chat with the attendees - especially during Pub Nights.

Who else can say that they bought a beer for Mark "Drools" Proctor, Charles "Dr. Rete" Forgy, Jason "The Jess Answer Man" Morris, Gary "CLIPS" Riley, John "EA" Zachman, Carole Ann Berlioz-Matignon, Carlos "Advisor" Seranno-Morales, Paul "Tibco" Vincent, Edson "CEP" Terilli, Daniel "TurboGeek" Brookshier, Rick "V&V" Hicks, Daniel "ANN" Levine, Hafedh "I wrote the books on JRules" Mili or Jacob "Open Rules" Feldman?? But, if you are at the conference and hang out on Pub Night at the Walt Garrison Room, YOU might !! :-)

The main theme of this year is just like last year: Have Fun! We are doing the one thing that we enjoy the most (outside of one or two indoor activities) and we should be having lots and lots of fun doing it. Last year was simply great. This year is even better. Better Hotel. Better location. Better presentations. I would say better speakers but some are the same as last year BUT we have many new speakers who will knock your socks off!! And the vendors who are the sponsors will have the very best technical personnel to answer your most perplexing problems.

This year, we will have redundancy on the video / audio recording so that we don't have gaps like last year. We learned our lesson about depending on a single source of technology. Greg Barton has promised the best recording and Chelanie Israel has promised to deliver a truly professional, well-polished product for those who attended the meeting. And, no, we do not have plans to sell the video to anyone. It's our free gift to those who attend the conference - and ONLY to them.

Sign up NOW and avoid the rush AND get an extra 10% along the way. Also, when you sign up, be SURE to sign up at the hotel for the special rates. If you have any trouble whatsoever, send me an email and let me know. [ jco@kbsc.com ]

SDG

jco