dreadedmonkeygod . net

I'm in Boston for the Endeca Discover conference. These are just some preliminary notes on the experience. Honestly, I think the realy measure of anything like this isn't how much I feel like I've learned, or the day-to-day experience. It's how much I can actually put to work when I get back to my job.

But I will certainly have a few gripes.

I flew in last night, with only a vague idea of how I was going to get to my hotel. After establishing that the hotel shares a shuttle bus with several others, I decided to actually explore Boston a bit, and took the T. Super-easy. A shuttle bus to the Blue Line, then transfer to the Green Line, and four stops later I was a block from my hotel.

A wonderful breakfast was served this morning. Truly first-rate. I had a plate of fruit, yogurt, a whole grain muffin, and a cup of coffee, and it was all really great. Pretty unusual for a Monday morning catered breakfast. I left my coffee at the breakfast table, expecting a table of paper cups and carafes, but found none. In fact, the only coffee I spotted for some time was from the starbucks across the street.

I come to these things expressly to "drink the Kool-Ade", so I was thrilled with the keynote. It centered around the notion that we're working with the most central raw material of our time (information), and as IT workers (using Endeca, of course), we're in prime position to make use of that raw material.

I also really liked the notion that web sites need to stop organizing merchandise like we do in the physical world. Getting away from that practice will yield sites that are easier to use, will attract more traffic, and will increase conversion.

And I really liked the reality check for businesses. At the beginning, we were asked to write down three things that were unique about our companies. Of course, at the end of the talk it was revealed that we'd all written down the same three things: quality/service, brand, and one other I can't recall. Bottom line: if you're relying on these things to keep your business going, you're in trouble.

My first session of the day was the XQuery lab. I'm a stranger to XQuery, so I was really looking forward to learning a new tool. But this session was really frustrating. At several points, the instructions first give you code to type in, then tell you that it won't run. Net result: you spend a few minutes going back over the code, trying to find the problem before seeing that there's suppposed to be a problem. The book was way too big to get through in the 1:45 allotted.

And XQuery itself is no picknick: it's the love child of SQL and Perl, and inherrits my least favorite features of each. Odd (and at times misleading) prefix notation from Perl, "English-like" syntax from SQL, and no explicit scoping. Oh, and Perl's implied scope: scalar vs. list. Fun!

After that, I went out looking for coffee, and found that there was none. I stood over a table full of paper coffee cups and tea bags, and realized that there was no coffe, and no hot water. Months ago, these caterers knew that at 1:15 PM on Monday, June 8, 600 techies were going to finish their lunch, and come looking for coffee. What the hell?

Next up was the lab on MDEX Performance Testing. It was a very short session, just 45 min. Yet the teacher spent the first 5 "giving everyone time to show up", and included a step that required waiting for 5-10 minutes while a script ran. Net result: 1/3 of the session lost to thumb-twiddling. I had enough time to collect performance data, but not to analyze it, or to learn what to do about it. So this session was basically a complete waste of time.

It didn't help that by then I'd been sitting still most of the day and was freezing. So during the break between sessions I jumped up to my hotel room to change into something warmer.

The 2:30 session with the guys from eBags.com was by far the best of the day. Their focus was on "5 Quick Wins": things that Endeca users can do immediately when they get home that will boost their site's traffic and conversion. They had great suggestions, and I can't wait to get home and start work on those that make sense where I work.

After that, I attended the "Hands-on SEO" lab, which focused on the capabilities of a particular, SEO-focused Endeca extension package. Bottom line: This extension really should be built into Endeca's core functionality. There's just not enough here to justify the expense or complexity of a full-blown extension.

Tomorrow should be just as interesting. I'm really torn as to what I'm going to attend. I'm inclined to stick with the lab & technical tracks, but I think the Business track is really where it's at tomorrow. Then again, that's not how I can best help my company, or serve my own career. But going home inspired would be great...

In any event, I'm going to make sure I make time to stop at Starbucks tomorrow morning. I've had enough of being caffeine deprived and frozen.

Honestly, I can't wait to get home. I'm booked on a flight Wednesday morning, and I'll be thrilled to be on it.