International Spectrum MultiValue User Conference 2014 Conference Recap

The 34th Annual International Spectrum Conference & Exhibition was the place to be for MulitValue networking, solutions, and education. Industry Professionals from all over North America, and around the world, gathered in Phoenix, AZ, from April 7th - April 10th, 2014, for four days of classes and conversations.

This year, we broke the sessions down into tracks. Each track was designed to take attendees — from start-to-finish — through the design and implement specific technologies. These Start-To-Finish tracks each introduced a specific development methodology and explained the underlying concepts, ending with a finished product. Our attendees walked away with over 20 hours of professional development in MultiValue database technologies and integration. That was just the value returned from sessions alone.

"Pretty Printouts and Reports" was a popular track. It focused on taking your raw "greenbar" reports and turning them into PDFs, into Emails, and even into data feeds for Excel, Word, and web forms.

As always, International Spectrum includes sessions on creating desktop applications with .NET as well. These applications showed MultiValue developers how to leverage .NET GUI and event driven process to create powerful UIs and tools. Included were sessions to teach .NET developers how to access MultiValue databases effectively and how to best use with MultiValue data structures.

There were two other tracks which went hand in hand, but actually addressed two different issues: "Presenting Real-time Data on Websites" and "Mobile/Tablets." The way businesses are run today, driven by the demands of customers, these topics have moved from "I would like to have" into "I must have." All business applications, especially CRM and ERP, must provide some kind of real-time data to the web or to mobile devices. Often, they are required to serve data to both.

In these sessions we covered topics from the basics of HTML, and best ways to control styling and layout, efficient ways to pull your data from your MultiValue database in real-time, and how to present MultiValue Data as JSON.

Mobile and tablet development has continued to become easier over the last few years. There were many discussions on how to create your mobile apps. One hot topic was the differences between a Webapp, NativeApp, and HybridApp, and how to use them to effectively present business information.

On a related note, Bluefinity International launched a new product called Evoke. This product provides MultiValue developers the ability to code-once, run-anywhere applications with MultiValue databases in mind. Evoke brings native mobile apps, hybrid mobile apps, and desktop apps within easy reach for MultiValue databases.

In addition to the Start-To-Finish topics, we had several management based topics: Project Estimation, MultiValue Source Control with GIT, Talking with SQL Programs, Big Data in MultiValue Databases, Disaster Recovering Planning, Enterprise Software (ERP) Must-Have Features, Secure Access to MultiValue Systems, and SQL vs. MultiValue (A Database and Development Comparison).

Another hot topic was virtualization. With many businesses looking closely at whether to buy new hardware or virtualize their existing systems, these sessions addressed questions about speed, storage, and design consideration. The presenter provided checklists for virtualizing onto the private or public cloud.

Last but not least, Nathan Rector brought back the MultiValue Fundamentals. For the last 3 years, there has been an increase in attendees who are coming to MultiValue databases from other disciplines. This year's sessions on BASIC programming, dictionaries, and MultiValue file design, provided these attendees with a grounding in the fundamentals. Our format allowed other attendees to mentor the newer converts and answer questions that were not covered specifically in the sessions.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the attendees were able to talk to our sponsors about tools and products that would help their business. As always, we started with our "Vendor Speed Dating", which is always a blast.

For those that do not know what "Vendor Speed Dating" is, all the sponsors get five minutes to talk to the attendees before the "sneak preview" party to inform them of things their companies can do for the attendees and the MultiValue marketplace in general. It is very informal. One sponsor sang a song to the attendees, and another read an excerpt from his upcoming Science Fiction book.

During lunch, and throughout the evening attendees would gather in various places to network with each other. The conference wrapped up on Thursday with our traditional "Closing Conference" party. Attendees enjoyed having one last time to talk, laugh, and connect, as they enjoyed the sun, food, and drinks.

One of the perks of attending the live conference was a chance to revisit popular sessions with our on-demand recordings of the sessions and with the downloads provided by the speakers and sponsors. Most of the attendees took advantage of these post-conference downloads and session videos.

Now that the 2014 Conference is over, it is time to start planning for the next one. International Spectrum 2015 will be at PGA National, Palm Beach, FL on April 13th - 16th, 2015, and plans are in the works to bring the conference back to Phoenix in April of 2016.

If you have at topic or session you would like to see at the Spectrum Conference, please let me know. I am always looking for new ideas, as well as presenters.

Featured:

May/Jun 2014