Category Archives: Conference Season

Coming Soon: The 6th International Supply Chain Management Symposium

The 6th Annual PMAC/MeRC International Supply Chain Management Symposium is coming up next month. It starts with the 3rd annual Doctoral Colloquium on Wednesday, October 15 and the welcome reception that night and the main body of the conference is on Thursday, October 16 and Friday October 17.

This year, their keynotes are from Mr. Dean D. Loria from Shell Canada Limited, Dr. Terry L. Esper from the University of Tennessee, and Jason “The Prophet” Busch, the Spend Master of Spend Matters. Jason’s always an energetic speaker, Dr. Esper is rather well reknowned, and although I must confess that I don’t know the dude from Shell, I’ve never attended a bad presentation from a Shell representative. (Not that they’ve all be gems, but compared to some presentations I’ve attended, including an Ariba keynote from last year, they were never bad.)

In addition, they again have a number of tracks on timely supply chain issues that include green supply chains, health care supply chains, energy sector best practices, and remanufacturing supply chains as well as the old standby topics that include global logistics, procurement management, and negotiation. In addition, this year’s panels are on green supply chains, non-profit supply chains, and supply chain education.

As I noted in last year’s announcement, there aren’t a lot of good Supply Chain / Sourcing / Procurement conferences north of the border, and this is one of the few. So, if you’re in Canada or the northern states and do business in, or with, Canada, I strongly encourage you to consider checking it out. Plus, you get to check out Cowtown this year, which might be a nice change after five years of Hogtown.

For those of you who haven’t been to Canada’s wild wild west, you can check out the the city web site, the Tourism Calgary site, the Calgary Community Events Guide, and even the WorldWeb.com travel guide and vacation planner. And even though the event is not being held during the annual Folk Festival, Blues Festival or during the world famous Stampede, you can always check out the Calgary Zoo and Heritage Park and see how your average Canadian still lives outside of the big nine Canadian cities (which, from east to west are: Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver). In addition, you can also check out the Calgary Herald, the Calgary Sun, and The Gauntlet from the University of Calgary for the down-low on what’s happening. (And you music lovers can check out Calgary Music Lives here, Music Calgary, and the Calgary Music Special Interest Group.) And, for us bloggers, there is the Wild Rose Brewery and the Brew Brothers Brewery … so we’ll be just fine.

What I Learned From Conference Season IV

In my last post I shared with you the fourth lesson I learned from Conference season, that

  • Apparently, Conference Season Was a Bust!

Even though Alan Buxton of Trading Partners and Tim Minahan of Supply Excellence chimed in with a pair of posts yesterday, I’ve yet to be contradicted. In Allan’s post, he noted that there appears to be a renaissance in eSourcing providers, as he found more were exhibiting this year than he’s used to, and that “green” and “sustainability” were hot topics on everyone’s lists. However, neither of these observations were unexpected, as there’s been a series of press releases from a flurry of vendors in the first part of this year announcing new “solutions” to the marketplace, as well as a lot of buzz on “sustainability”, including the buzz here on this blog in the last cross-blog series.

In Tim’s post, he decided to bypass the primary focus of the topic entirely and instead give us a post on “How to Negotiate and Manage Best-Value Events”, using the latest analysis of fellow crusader Justin Falgione, that is available on Ariba (acquired by SAP) SupplyWatch. Now I agree there is some savings potential, as they found that 1% of a typical company’s sales is spent on meetings and events, but if you’re not getting anything out of them, why hold them at all?

Anyway, maybe next conference season will be better. And if you are organizing, or know of, an event that is worthwhile, please submit it for addition to the master directory on the SI resource site#! The site has been updated and you can now submit events for consideration through the site. In addition, the site will now be tracking (executive) roundtables, seminars, training sessions, workshops, and webcasts – so please feel free to submit them at your convenience. It’s to everyone’s benefit to get this information out there in one centralized site.

# The resource site was archived in 2017 and permanently removed in 2024.

What I Learned From Conference Season III

In my last post I shared with you the top three lessons I learned from Conference Season. Today I have one more to add:

  • Apparently, Conference Season Was a Bust!

It seems that only a few of us bloggers learned anything from conference season this year. With the exception of Jason Busch of Spend Matters (Three Lessons from Conference Season), Vinnie Mirchandani of Deal Architect, Brian Sommer of Services Safari, who offered up more of his learnings in Ready to Drink the Kool-Aid?, David Bush of e-Sourcing Forum and Justin Fogarty of Supply Execellence who offered us some tidbits from reSource 2008 and Ariba LIVE, respectively, all the bloggers and guest bloggers have been eerily quiet on this one. That’s not good news.

Considering that these events seem to require more time, money, and effort every year, I find this unacceptable – especially in a time when we’re facing skyrocketing commodity prices across the board, recessions, and stagflation. Now is the time we all need to be taking more away from conferences than ever, and if only a few of us are managing to take away a few tidbits of useful information, that says something – and what it says ain’t good. I know the number one benefit of most events is networking, but when you consider you’re paying thousands of dollars for the benefit (when you add up airfare, hotel, and steadily rising registration fees), there are more cost effective ways to get the same result. For example, most professional societies put on regular member networking events that are much cheaper than your average conference. Now, it’s true that most of these are only going to attract locals, but if you’re a member of a national (or international organization), there’s nothing to stop you from keeping track of what other sections are doing and going to their events when you’re in town on business trips (or vacations, if you should be so lucky). It might take four (or five) of these to connect up with the same number of individuals as you would at one national (or international) conference, but, as you’re not dashing around like a recent escapee from a mental health institution, you actually have time to sit down and talk to them. You could call that a net win!

Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe most people learned so much from this year’s conference season that they just don’t know where to begin (and that’s why they haven’t posted yet), but after talking with a few regular guest-bloggers who, up until now, have always had something to add to the discussion, I’m starting to think I’m right. And it’s unfortunate. Maybe us bloggers are going to have to get together and reshape the conference world as well. What do you think?

What I Learned From Conference Season II

In my last post, I covered the lessons proffered up to you by Jason “The Prophet” Busch of Spend Matters (Three Lessons from Conference Season), Vinnie “The Deal-Maker” Mirchandani of Deal Architect, and Brian “Service Master” Sommer of Services Safari. Today, I’m going to share with you the top three lessons I learned from Conference Season. They are:

  • Big Names Definitely Don’t Mean Big Ideas
  • You Don’t Have to Go to that Many Conferences to Tap Into the Buzz
  • Kill the Left-Suckers!

The two worst presentations, and two I walked out on in disgust, that I attended this year were put on by … wait for it … representatives of SAP (at SCL Canada) and Infosys (at reSource). Just because you have ready-made decks, that doesn’t mean that you have a ready made presentation. First of all, the decks have to be good (they weren’t). Secondly, the presenters have to understand the material (and in at least one case, the presenter did not appear to), and, thirdly, the presenters have to be good (they really, really weren’t). I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, only Pierre Mitchell can get away with cramming two-dozen concepts on a slide and still have it make sense. And Pierre Mitchell is also one of the few who can get away with, when he chooses, ignoring the slide completely, or saying the exact opposite of what’s on the slide. If you’re a (p*ss) poor presenter, you can’t. So please, please, please — DON’T TRY!

Any more than three conferences per season, and you’re wasting your time (unless you’re just going to meet up with colleagues and sit in the lobby and network). I’ve only been to two so far, and even before I got through the first, I was thinking “didn’t I just hear this”? Multiply that by three, and you get tired — fast. The buzz, which has a life of its own, travels fast, and you don’t have to go to that many events to be sure of getting it. The key, as Jason and Vinnie pointed out, is to make the most of them when you’re there.

Finally, the best piece of advice offered up this conference season was by Jim Tompkins of Tompkins’ Associates in his presentation on Bold Leadership for Organizational Acceleration where he came right out and handed out the best piece of advice for organizational success that I’ve heard a management guru utter — Kill The Left-Suckers. (Yes, contrary to popular opinion, the best piece of advice one can get is not to kill all the lawyers, because, even though the majority of lawyers are left-suckers, not all lawyers are left-suckers and, more importantly, not just lawyers are left-suckers.) For those of you who happened to miss the original post, a left-sucker is a person who can’t do his (or her) job, and pulls his (or her) manager away from doing what the manager is supposed to be doing to help the individual who can’t do his (or her) job. A left-sucker is bad because when managers are consistently pulled away from their jobs, they don’t get their work done and then their directors have to step in to pick up the slack. When the directors get consistently pulled away from their jobs, they don’t get their work done and then the C-Suite has to pick up the slack. When the C-Suite has to pick up the slack, they aren’t getting their work done, and then the CEO gets pulled into fire-fighting on a daily basis — and instead of the CEO leading the C-Suite in setting strategic direction, he’s bogged down in tactical execution while the company starts burning down around him.

So there you have it. As Jason said, the innovation is there for those who look for it, but as Vinnie would attest, it’s not always where you would expect it; the buzz has a life of its own and you don’t have to go to a dozen conferences to tap into it; and you shouldn’t be afraid of using the axe. (Alternatively, there are hired guns you can bring in if you’re too timid to do it yourself.)

What I Learned From Conference Season I

Last week, a few of my fellow bloggers jumped the gun in their rush to share with you some of what they learned during conference season. Jason “The Prophet” Busch of Spend Matters was the first out of the gate with his post on “Three Lessons From Conference Season” where he suggested that:

  1. You don’t judge a book by its cover (or an event by past reputation)
    as both ISM and SAP Sapphire (apparently) put on a good show this year
  2. Your attitude is everything
    and the key to successful networking and learning
  3. You really can find examples of innovation at many events to take back to your organization
    and CVM Supply World, SIG, and even Ariba LIVE had numerous examples of innovation

This was quickly followed by Vinnie “The Deal-Maker” Mirchandani’s post on What I Learned From Conference Season on Deal Architect where he echoed Jason’s point about networking and how it generates the greatest value from these types of events. He also noted that the expo floor, which allows you to see many solution providers in a compressed time-frame, is also valuable. But his biggest “aha” was that his clients should also have tickets to the conferences and events so that they could take advantage of the events together, and not be on conference calls when they could be learning and networking on the expo floor.

And then Brian “Service Master” Sommer of Services Safari decided he just couldn’t wait any longer and offered up his humorous post on Traveling During Conference Season where he asked the Lord to save him from the “expert” travelers. (Who are the “expert” travellers? Follow the link to find out!)

But if you want to get technical, David Bush of eSourcing Forum and Tim Minahan and Justin Fogarty of Supply Excellence beat them to the punch with their learnings from reSource 2008 and Ariba Live. These can be found here:

reSource 2008 by David Bush and Michael Lamoureux
(e-Sourcing Forum [WayBackMachine])

  • Iasta reSource Begins Monday
  • reSource ’08 leaves the dock
  • Iasta reSource Dispatch I – Users and Usage
  • Iasta reSource Dispatch II – Highlights From the Main Day
  • Can You Really Afford to Leave Millions on the Table?

Ariba Live by Justin Fogarty and Tim Minahan
(Supply Excellence [WayBackMachine])

  • Live From Ariba Live in Las Vegas
  • Live From Live: Good News About The Global Economy
  • Live From Live: Bad News About The Global Economy
  • Live From Live: Suppliers Are Not The Enemy
  • Live From Live: Lessons From Private Equity
  • Live From Live: Finding and Keeping Good People
  • Live From Live: Cultural Divide
  • Live From Live: Where Is China Headed?
  • Sustainability: Throw Out Everything You Know

And then if you want to get really technical, Jason Busch and I have been blogging about conferences for over a month now!

Spend Matters* Event & Conference Posts by Jason Busch
* All posts prior to 2012 were removed in the Spend Matters site refresh in June, 2023.

  • CVM Supply World Chicago – Dispatch One
  • IACCM — Blogging Live (Dispatch 1)
  • IACCM — Blogging Live (Dispatch 2)
  • IACCM — Blogging Live (Dispatch 3)
  • IACCM — Blogging Live (Dispatch 4)
  • IACCM — Blogging Live (Dispatch 5)
  • Inside the Mind of IACCM’s Tim Cummins
  • Pierre Mitchell’s Information-Packed IACCM Presentation (Part I)
  • IACCM Americas — Dispatch 6
  • IACCM Americas — Dispatch 7
  • Pierre Mitchell’s Information-Packed IACCM Presentation (Part 2)
  • Sapphire Dispatch 1 — Landed at Sapphire
  • Getting the Most Out of Conferences this Year
  • Sapphire Dispatch 2 – The Frictionless Brand Creates Some Friction
  • Sapphire Dispatch 3 — Widgets and Dashboards
  • Sapphire Dispatch 4 — The SAP E-Sourcing Roadmap
  • Sapphire Dispatch 5 — A Strong Collaborative Vision (with a Questionable Reality)
  • SIG — Dispatch One
  • Ariba Live Dispatch 1 — Landed At LIVE
  • Ariba Live Dispatch 2 — A Vegas Metaphor
  • Ariba Live Dispatch 3 — Calderoni and the Ariba Supplier Network Take Center Stage
  • Ariba Live Dispatch 4 — Summing Up Day One
  • Ariba Live Dispatch 5 — Tyco’s Stewart Takes Excellence Achievement Award
  • Ariba Live Dispatch 6 — Flying Commercial is a Good Sign
  • Ariba Live Dispatch 7 — Shopping for a Deal
  • Blogger Relations: Taking a Lesson From SAP
  • One Observation from CVM Supply World

Sourcing Innovation Event & Conference Posts by Michael Lamoureux