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Blues, food and laughs (and learning too):
The real BE!
Field report from this year's Bentley
Empowered conference by Ivan Pena, Axiom's Vice President
for Marketing.
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, USA — Have you ever been
to a Bentley conference? If you haven't, I recommend you put
that on your list of things to do for next year. Why? I will
tell you about my experience at this year's conference and
you make up your own mind. But this won't be your typical
play-by-play, just-covering-the-highlights recap. No sir.
Welcome to the real BE! The 2005 BE Conference was held at
the Baltimore Convention Center in Downtown Baltimore. Nestled
between Camden Yards (home of the Orioles baseball franchise)
and a variety of restaurants, the Baltimore Convention Center
was an excellent location for a five-day MicroStation learning
and networking extravaganza. Attendees have their pick of
hundreds of specialized sessions - from the unveiling ceremony
of the next generation of MicroStation, XM, to Geospatial
seminars about Bentley Fiber (software for managing fiber
optic cabling) to how to maximize your SELECT memberships
ROI (Return on Investment) - and countless networking opportunities.
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| Axiom’s Mogens Troelsen (right) with his friend
and customer, Carsten Ahm from COWI A/S, Denmark. |
Day 1
Aside from the triviality of setting up our exhibit booth,
the first day was a huge success. Cuddled up with countless
chaffing dishes teeming with pastas and meats and trays of
foreign cheeses (not your standard processed cheddar) sat
the eager ensemble of vendors. It was a game of attention
grabbing. Each vendor was armed with their unique weapon.
Some had curvaceous conversationalists. Others free candy
and trinkets with screen-printed logos, all with one goal
in mind: getting a passer-by's attention so they could show
off their unique solutions.
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| Voodoo Deville, featuring Ivan Pena on the bass guitar.
The band is (from left to right), The Professor, Ivan
filling in for T-Bone (Ray Bentley), Pops (Bentley Senior
Vice President, Buddy Cleveland), The Delaware Destroyer,
Cannonball and Rooster. |
On Sunday night, the sounds of Chicago-style blues emanated
from one corner of the exhibit floor. Voodoo Deville, the
BE house band, jammed away to a crowd of jet-lagged attendees.
Nonetheless, numerous attendees mustered up the resolve to
cut a rug. I, being an accomplished bass player, had the opportunity
to sit in for Ray Bentley (who is Voodoo's bass player) and
took the stage for a bluesy rendition of the Clash's "I
Fought the Law". For me, this was the highlight of the
night. I got the chance to share the stage with Buddy Cleveland
and an ensemble of Bentley staff. I don't know if you know
this, but this is quite the honor.
Shortly after the band stopped playing, the exhibit floor
closed. Rumors of late night "power parties" circulated.
But tomorrow would be a long day, filled with handshakes and
demonstrations, so I opted to get back to the hotel and relax.
Axiom's Vice President for Technology Eiren Smith and I (roommates
during this trip) retreated back to our room and took in a
bad Vin Diesel flick.
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| Axiom’s Mike Arroyo (left) shows off Axiom’s
latest solutions to Doug Crockwell of Bonneville Power
Administration. |
The opportunity of meeting and spending quality time with
our valued customers is the main reason why we go to the BE.
We get to talk to hundreds of different MicroStation users,
from all different backgrounds, from different disciplines.
This alone should bring people in droves to every BE. You
get to hang out with fellow users and learn about what is
working for them, what isn't and how they handle problems
that could derail projects (of course, usually they can find
the solution at the Axiom booth).
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| Axiom’s President, Ed Clark (left), and CEO, David
Greenbaum (center), meeting with Bentley’s Charley
Ferrucci (Vice President for the Bentley Institute) at
the Axiom booth. |
Day 2
The highlight of day two was the BE Awards dinner. I particularly
enjoyed this dinner. Not because of Alan Farkas' Johnny-Carson-meets-Charleston-Heston
dry delivery (which I actually enjoyed), but because I got
to see the latest infrastructure projects from around the
world. Many of Axiom's customers were nominated, and 17 of
them were victorious. That is always pleasant to see. It reminds
us all of the importance of our jobs: we help people make
the world better. Today was a good day.
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| The Axiom gang (David Greenbaum, Debbie Greenbaum, Ed
Clark, Hetha Chelin, Mike Arroyo, Eiren Smith, Ivan Pena
and Mogens Troelsen) at the BE Awards ceremony dinner. |
I do have to take a second to tell you about Dan Theman.
He sat at our table during the awards banquet. Well, I wouldn't
say he sat much. You see, Dan would come by the table, nibble
on his food without sitting down, sip his wine and coffee
and then he would leave again. The man was a ghost eater.
He didn't even talk to us or anything. The only reason we
know his name is because we caught a glimpse of his attendee
badge (that was our story to the waitress anyway). If anyone
out there knows him, please let him know that the entire Axiom
gang says hello!
Day 3
Day three. Wow. This was a long day of presentations and demonstrations.
To cap off a long workday was the Bentley Unplugged session.
There, thanks to Axiom's Mike Arroyo (a true celebrity in
the MicroStation community), I got to shake hands and trade
greetings with Bentley executives and Bentley programmers
from around the world. All this while we had Cirque du Soleil
performers taking their bodies to inhuman extremes and had
a constant stream of beer, wine and hors d'oeuvres available.
This quasi-Bacchanalian shindig almost got out of hand when
the Jeopardy-esque MicroStation trivia game began. For those
of you that were there, you know what I am talking about.
Let's just say that if you plan to yell the wrong answers
from the back of the room, make sure that Greg Bentley isn't
standing in front of you. It was all in good fun though.
The night moved on. As the Unplugged ended, a small crowd
of eager partiers congregated in the Charles Street lobby.
I, of course, led a small posse of Axiomites and friends (who
shall remain anonymous for their sake) through a wild-goose
chase in the quest for an elusive post-party. Alas, we did
not find the party, but we did stumble across many of our
peers at a downtown cantina. I would love to tell you all
about it, but I really don't recall much. All I know is that
by the end of the night, I had made lots of MicroStation-using
friends and had cemented party plans for next year's BE (which
is in Charlotte, North Carolina). Boy did I pay for that the
next morning.
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| Axiom’s Eiren Smith (right) shows Axiom’s
time-saving utilities. |
Day 4
The last day was just icing on the cake. All in all, the conference
had already been a success. Bentley had good reviews on the
new MicroStation XM, vendors had been well taken care of throughout
the conference and attendees felt the spirit of camaraderie
and friendship that had been stimulated over the last three
days. Although the conference went on until Thursday, we packed
up our booth on Wednesday afternoon after the Malcolm Walter
luncheon (where we got our cool BE t-shirts!). Truthfully,
I didn't make it to the luncheon. Everyone else did. The parties
the night before got the best of me and I needed a nap. Later
in the day, Eiren, Mike and I then got to hang out and exchange
jokes with our friends Steve Norton and Dennis Olson from
Iowa. This was the perfect way to wrap up the last four-days'
worth of meetings, demonstrations and conversations with many
of our customers.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading my little account of the festivities surrounding
the BE. I hope this report makes you want to come out next
year. The learning and networking opportunities available
at the BE make the event the premier event for MicroStation
users. One tip though: when the BE is in Baltimore again,
make sure you eat before 10pm. It seems that all the neighboring
restaurants (at least the ones we went to) only serve appetizers
after 10pm. There is nothing worse than having to eat re-heated
chili with a side of fried calamari when you are starving.
Sheesh!
I hope to see you all next year!
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