REPLY Future Development Directions (SD6282)

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Posted by  "Jim Hines" <Jim at ventanasystems.com>

A couple of people have mentioned practice-based presentations at our annual
conference.  Here's a more radical thought:

Why not have a "professional conference" that's separate from the existing
conference? 

A few years ago, Roberta Spencer and I attended a professional conference on
supply chains.  It was VERY different from an academic conference; it was
very different from our annual SD conference.  Consultants were giving talks
that -- in addition to providing practical advice -- also plugged their
services.  There was no implication in the talks that what was being
presented was new or groundbreaking.  The focus was simply, 'here's what we
do'.

I came away from the conference on supply chains thinking there really
wouldn't be a lot of synergy between the sort of conference we usually have,
and a professional SD conference.  In fact, if anything the reverse:  The
agenda and mind set of one sort of conference would interfere with the
agenda and mindset of the other sort.  

Through the years there have been several attempts to make the annual SD
conference more attractive to professionals.  None have succeeded as fully
as we'd hoped.  Maybe the reason is that a professional focus really doesn't
complement an academic focus, but instead detracts from it.  

My guess is that a separate professional conference would provide the needed
space for a flowering of professional presentations and discussion, and
would attract many, many more practitioners than our current conference
does.  Further, I suspect that a separate professional conference, would
actually **improve** the current (academic) conference -- meaning the
average quality of the papers and conversation at the academic conference
would improve in ways that most people at that conference would like.

Why not have a separate professional conference?  

Jim
Posted by  "Jim Hines" <Jim at ventanasystems.com>
posting date  Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:19:40 -0500