I understand exactly how you feel, @aosemwengie1. Me and another coworker go, but we don’t sit together and all that, and we usually take different EE and sessions, so I’m solo too. I take my boyfriend on the trips but he only comes to dinners and the show, and this year we ended up skipping the show because I was exhausted. (Humidity in the room this year did me in!)
It did look most people were there in a group, and I don’t love coming to a full table of strangers either. Fair amount of anxiety for sure. Maybe they could have some specific tables for “singles” so we could all help each other out? I’d totally sit there.
1 Like
As far as connections, knowing there were so many of us there eating in the same room, but also only in small groups or alone was something I thought about on the way home. I have a couple of ideas.
-
EpiUsers buttons so we can recognize a fellow user and say hello or sit down to eat. We would need a consultant to let people pick them up as they came to the conference. @Chris_Conn and I closed the bar with one that would likely do it. It would have to bigger the @MikeGross’s I am DocStar Rockstar button to be seen from a distance. I can get 150 3 inch buttons for $140.
-
Some kind of mass texting app for impromptu dinner gathering. Preferably one that doesn’t expose my phone number. We literally have enough people in the room to do a mini Epiusers get together each meal. Anyone willing to research? I thought about Remind that we use with our team, but it is education only.
4 Likes
@gpayne We were going to make the EpiUsers ribbons again, but ran out of time. Hopefully next year we have a little extra time to prep. @rbucek printed those awesome keychains and got them mailed out just in time.
We can figure out a messaging app too, i’m sure between all of us we can find something.
For me, I would like to have some of the sessions recorded to watch later. I know Epicor hosts the virtual summit which has some of the same/similar content from Insights. I also understand the cost involved with recording them all. We can record the Epiusers panel next year, I have the equipment to do that.
I do wish the labs were accessible for a few days after the conference. It’s a great problem that I found too many sessions I wanted to attend! I wanted to play a little more with the Kinetic labs, luckily we have a kinetic playground.
3 Likes
@bderuvo Feel free to reach out next year if you need help getting it all done. I am good with ribbons, medals and trophies.
@aosemwengie1 @Erin_Corona I would be more than happy to have you sit at my table! There’s always room for a few more 
The team I was with kept leaving me behind because I “know too many people”…LOL!
I remember my first Insights (it was Perspectives then) and I didn’t know a soul. I was the only one from my company that went. MI-IN didn’t have a users group back then so I had only a handful of contacts in the Epicor world.
After the conference, I got involved in the MI-IN group on the leadership team and the rest is history! Hopefully it won’t be another 10 years before I get to go to Insights again 
You may not want to go to that extent but make sure you attend your local User Group meetings if you can. They are much smaller than Insights and you can meet a few new people each time.
6 Likes
I’m going to have to change my avatar for future events…I’ve hung up my flying cap and googles these days, and some days, I just hide my propeller cap, there are soo many smart people here.
2 Likes
100% they also shut then down at around 5pm every night. I was trying to do some work one night then the VM froze on me. You’re lucky you have Kinetic playgrounds I’ve got the Demo/Education database in Kinetic I can use to play with but it’s not ideal as it’s missing our UDs & data.
1 Like
@Randy - you’re on-prem right? Your license allows for a second test/dev copy of your database. We just spun up a VM with SQL and the Appservers on it, using the same license, and use it for testing everything from BPMs to updates. And I’ve got some scripts to help move Prod->Test if you need them.
@MikeGross , some of the labs have some setup stuff done to the demo database for the lab, without that work already done, you can get lost sometimes.
We’re moving to cloud. We’ll still have a “Pilot” copy for testing patches, etc. But as Brandon says, some things they’ve pre-staged so without that it can be easy to get lost sometimes.
@Banderson Indeed and agreed - the Demo Image provided has very specific data used in the lab guide. I was speaking more to Randy’s lack of a Dev DB for his own testing work (with his UDs & Data)
@Randy wrestling the pre-staged setups is easy after using the grey books for training all those years ago!!
2 Likes
Host it in Europe, or even better in the UK so I can go 
1 Like
Attended for first time this year after being a user for 3 years. Initial thoughts are as follows:
- If I pay for a session - I should 100% be able to view it later - so it NEEDS TO BE RECORDED! I paid for it and because the conference was in the Southeast in late spring - Weather kept me from getting into Nashville until Sunday afternoon around 2:30. I missed the first paid for session Sunday morning and missed the first hour and a half of the second session. I was disappointed to learn that too bad so sad was the consensus of the Epicor staff when I inquired about a recorded version of the session or a refund.
2: I am not sure if I have ever heard the terms Amazing and Incredible used more times that when the CEO, President, and CTO all gave their key notes. I wish it would have been a drinking game each time we heard it! Someone please inform them that Epicor is software - ERP Software. It’s not a new medical procedure or cure for a disease. Words like Amazing and Incredible are already diminished enough because of over-use. - Overall thoughts on the conference, the sessions, the location, the new contacts and friends made, etc. are positive. I did contract covid through an exposure at the One Republic show on Wednesday evening according to Apple Notifications. Depending on how you look at that - it was an added week away from work - yay, or it was an added week away from work - yikes! According to others I’ve spoken with, several people tested positive upon their return from the show. I live in the Northwest, so maybe that was something particular to this area, I don’t know.
- I brought back all of the information I could along with many notes from discussion with other users and Epicor staff. The whole point of these conferences in my opinion is twofold - Hear about new technologies, improvements, etc. and make new contacts with other users. I would say that both of these were successful. I’m recommending that someone from our company attend at least every other year to stay current on changes (whether actual or proposed) and to continue to meet other users .
The overall cost for the conference, travel, hotel, training, etc. ended being around $5,500 for each of our employees. It is not an in expensive endeavor so if anyone is considering attending they should do their best to get their monies worth from the event. That entails diligent note taking, getting signed up for the paid sessions that most benefit them or their company, being open to meeting many new people and sharing contact info, ideas, gripes, concerns, success stories., etc.
As for the order or organization of the event - there was so much offered and so much going on at once, I’m not the best person to offer a different manner in how it could have been better. I was satisfied with the venue, the offerings, and the duplication in some cases of offerings giving me the most opportunity to attend most of what I was interested in. I’ve attended a copy of other bigger shows like this in the past (for symix software and for JD Edwards software back in the day). Epicor’s conference was as good and probably better than both of those. I didn’t think it was over-priced, but again, the only way to get your money out of it is to come prepared to learn, study, glad-hand new people, discuss openly with others there, and be willing to hand out business cards. Since I’ve returned, I’ve had three calls from some of the people I’ve met asking me to show them how we have accomplished things in Epicor. Everything from BAQ’s and Dashboards to other customizations.
I would recommend attending if you have the $$ and are willing to put in some effort.
Good Luck!
5 Likes
I tested myself and was negative, but one of our other colleagues got covid as well.
Nice post.
1 Like
I tested positive when I got home. Thankfully not much more than a head cold.
3 Likes
Beth has always welcomed me to her table:>) We met at Insights in Vegas years ago and finally got to do another Insights together this year. She knows so many people that you would make friends for future conferences in no time. So yes please look for Beth!! It will be well worth it!!
2 Likes
Thanks, Jill! 
2 Likes