That’s right, SEPG 08 is all done and over! My first time in Tampa and I must say that it is a great little city. If you ever get the chance to visit there, make sure you go to Ybor City. This part of town hosts some great restaurants. This historical section of the city has many wonders to explore. Make sure you visit the cigar factories where you can watch the craftsmen and ladies roll world class cigars from cuban seeded tobacco. No, I’m not a cigar smoker, but these skilled individuals are the last of a great tradition of making cigars by hand, not machine.
The conference ended up with about 1400 attendees. The program had a variety of talks, but I believe the bias this year was toward discussing measurement and high maturity practices. Bob and I did a couple of tutorials that were pretty well attended. On Monday I did a PPQA tutorial that had about 200 attendees. I find it interesting that over the years, people are still interested in a value added approach for implementing QA. It’s a fundamental concept that is not too difficult to understand, but I suspect that folks find it difficult to implement, therefore their interest in the tutorial.
Monday night was an opportunity to meet with the SEI Partner Advisory Board members. We just elected some new members and held our meeting to discuss our role and activities as representatives for the Partner community.
On Tuesday I was on a panel that was moderated by Ron Radice. My fellow panel members included John Maher, and Madhumita Sen. The panel was interesting and focused on the direction that the SEI is taking on a variety of topics to include high maturity, appraisals, and the model. I was happy to see some SEI folks in the audience along with a number of lead appraisers. A strange thing happened during the panel session. The convention center’s automated alarm system notified us in a rather loud fashion that we needed to vacate the building immediately. Man, did the attendees “git up and out” quickly. Within a few minutes of our hasty egress, the automated lady got back on the horn to let us know that it was a false alarm. Strange thoughts were making their way through my head as I thought…nah….there are no terrorists in Tampa. Why would they want to hold a bunch of process geeks hostage?
Tuesday night I had planned on going to the ISD bash. Every year these guys throw a party and invite folks to enjoy the good fun. Joe Morin knows how to put on a good party. Unfortunately I was feeling a bit punky from a cold that I brought from San Jose that finally got the best of me. Wednesday I spent most of the day in my Residence Inn room watching CNN and feeling spent. Eventually I rallied and felt well enough Wednesday night to have a great dinner with Bob at the Acropolis in Ybor City. Boy do they have great Moussaka! Their Spanakopita is delicious too! Seriously, you need to hit this Greek establishment if you are in town. Prices are right, the food is fab, and the elderly gent playing Balalaika is charming. One of their traditions is for the waiters to toss paper napkins in the air while dancing to traditional Greek music. Nice touch.
Bob got the nod to speak on Thursday afternoon, which is the kiss of death at this conference. Many attendees decide to bail out on Thursday, so there aren’t a lot of people left at the conference to fill the room. About 150 showed up however, and Bob said he had a fun time.
I was surprised to find out that San Jose is the location for the 09 conference. San Jose last hosted in 97 and it was a monster smash hit. Hopefully we’ll have the same success in 2009.
Ah well, it’s good to be back in the bay. Actually I was in the bay, Tampa Bay that is. But truth be told, there is nowhere like this bay, the south bay, of San Francisco! I love my home……………..
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