Conference Day 1

Here is where I will be for much of this morning, I'm at the ESRI Federal Users Conference and will be in the Plenary Session all morning watching and listening to new innovations from Jack Dangermond, who is the father of GIS. He is the Bill Gates of Microsoft and the Jeff Bezos of Amazon, the self made multi-billionaire founder of ESRI and GIS.

I got to meet the man three years ago as he was getting out of his cab on the second day of the Conference a few years ago. He's very approachable, very kind and friendly and one heck of a nice guy. I can say in my profession, I have met the founder and the innovator.

After the Plenary Session this morning, we will break into training, where you can go and sharpen your skills with the new technologies that are being developed. Last time I went and picked up quite a few tips and tricks that I use to this day still.

After the Conference is over with, the Department of Energy will have their GIS Users gathering. This is mostly some people from the other national labs discussing what they are doing. I was in on the original meeting three years ago, so it will be nice to see how this has developed. I can also speak with a couple of my old bosses who are in Oregon and talk to them about how I had the software installed on a very locked down LAN and how it is working. I was the Guinea Pig, and made it happen. I should be downtown DC until later tonight.

Have yourselves a great day, I plan on it .

Hi ho hi ho