Nugget 2011 - Day One - A HUGE Success!

Wow! Day 1 of Nugget 2011. If you weren't here, you missed it! A great keynote from John Miller, author of QBQ!, on the transformational power of personal accountability; a high energy look at What's New in Eighth Edition of the Newforma PIM solution with Allen Preger; a trip down memory lane with Ian Howell; a great panel discussion with Ron Heims of RDG, Brad Horst of EYP and Susan McDowell of Haskell that prompted lots of questions and discussion; and great in-depth sessions by Newforma Services team members that also prompted lots of questions and discussion, all presided over by MC Dan Conery.

By far for me, though, the best part is the great interaction that is going on with and among our customers. More photos are available at: http://bit.ly/kGlUFG

Nugget 2011 - Day One, T -1 hour and counting!

April 27, 2011 – Slept in – recharging my batteries – up at 5:30am. It’s going to be a big day today. Before I head out this morning, I thought you might like to see the view from the hotel.

The tall building is the Trump International Hotel and Tower. The black slab tower to its right is the headquarters of Perkins & Will and just to its right you can get a peek at the iconic Marina Towers Condominium complex. It’s a gray day here in Chicago today, but we’re all going to be so busy with Day 1 of Nugget 2011, no one will know the difference. Pre-conference sessions sessions begin at 9am. Onward!

Nugget 2011 - T-1 day and counting

April 26, 2011 – Well, it was an exciting day, even before Nugget 2011 began. Today was a travel day with 23 Newformants converging on Chicago in preparation for Nugget 2011. Unfortunately, the continuing rough weather throughout the Midwest made for lots of travel delays and an accident at Midway caused a number of flights to be diverted from that airport. Fortunately, no one was injured in that accident and none of our Newformants were on that flight, although Tony Page was originally scheduled to be on it! Hopefully, none of our customers were on it either.

But the stories abound…. Aaron Kivett and Rick Saladino were diverted to Milwaukee. Dan Conery and Renee VanDyne were diverted to St. Louis and drove from there. Google maps says it’s a 5hr 13 min drive; Dan says it’s 4-1/2 hours – you decide! In true Newforma tradition, all of them made it to Chicago in time for deep dish pizza at Pizza Due! A few people are still unaccounted for at this writing, including Ian Howell and Chris Burns, but we have every confidence everyone will make it in before we kick off the product validation sessions at 9am and the opening lunch at noon! Right, Ian?