Iasta reSource ‘07 Recap

1 comment May 18th, 2007 David Bush - Iasta

Much like the duck that is cranking his little webbed feet as hard as possible to swim, but looks calm and stable on the surface, was the 3 days of our first user conference. I think since we did it all ourselves, listened to a number of ideas from our clients beforehand, and avoided rain on Wednesday, I will consider this event to be hugely successful for both us and our clients.

One of the things I learned very clearly, was that no matter how much we email or call, it is very difficult to explain everything our software can do without having adequate time and energy spent to do it. 100% of the attendees that came up from this week, left with a list of new things they were going to start implementing throughout their own companies. Perhaps most interesting (almost to a person) these people were genuinely excited about the new value they were going to be able to generate through the software they already had license to use.

I know we learned a great deal about what to do for future conferences to make them even better. I am still a proponent of content density over lack of depth, but admittedly had hit my limit by the end of the day Tuesday. Ultimately, I think people can decide for themselves when they need to decompress and take a walk or charge ahead to participate in everything. My only regret is that I had two opportunities (conference kick-off presentation and wrap up discussion) to tell everyone in attendance that we administered everything for reSource using our own technology. We built an extensive RFP to collect detailed data from the best downtown hotels and added pricing information through a sealed bid process. Ultimately, we had the executive team go through and score/evaluate the responses which determined our winner - Marriott. A reverse auction was seriously considered but due to the lack of available hotel rooms already and our relatively low purchasing clout, we opted for the less aggressive strategy. However, as Jason Busch says, we ate our own dog food, and I forgot to tell people!

The Iasta user community is doubling (or more) every year which means reSource will be quite extensive next year. I have no doubt that there will be word of mouth attendance growth as there were so many people that enjoyed themselves and got value. Fortunately, we ended on a very high note as a ton of people got to see and do things that cannot be replicated anywhere else in the world and the word “optimization” was ne’er uttered once all day Wednesday…

Entry Filed under: Functionality, General, Supply Management Best Practices, Technology, e-Sourcing Marketplace