SCIP 2010 local conference in APAC?

[Tristan Sternson]

Hi All,

While I was at the SCIP conference this year I spoke with the SCIP leadership team about the potential to run a SCIP conference locally for APAC. The possibility is there depending of course on the number of attendees we would get and the cost to run the conference. Now that we are gaining more members into our local community I am interested in all of your thoughts on SCIP running a local conference next year, and whether you would consider atteding if it was run in Australia or somewhere in Asia like Malaysia, Singapore or even India?

I will take all the information you provide me back to SCIP to help them make their decision.

Regards,

Tristan

[Nimalan]

Hi Tristan,

Yes, this would be interesting and it would be more convenient too.

However SCIP traditionally has had very little relevance to practitioners like me. We found it US centric and not very useful. Like we did not see any major loss by not being SCIP members.

As for me, I would definitely consider attending it, I just hope our management sees enough value in it to let me go.

Nimalan

[Arik Johnson]

Great topic Tristan - I would certainly make the effort to participate as well as we do in Europe. It's such a HUGE area though; I think Singapore might be a prime place central enough to most to justify the journey vis-a-vis Sydney, Jakarta, Japan, etc. China's tougher though just getting paperwork done and India seems like a stretch from this distance - almost as if either of those countries could easily do a conference of their own..

- Arik

[Lesley Howell]

Hi Tristan,

Having never been to SCIP, I'd be interested in attending either an APAC version - or one in the States - but that would be dependant on there being more than a day and a half of conference. I, for one, would not be attracted to spending a day flying there, and a day coming home, to enjoy 36 jetlagged hours, trying to attend every session of interest. Too much ... and not enough time to take everything in, to talk to people and do everything I wanted to do,

Also, a question of timing - since we are having a recession in everthing but name, maybe we would be wise to wait for a ray or two of economic sunshine before we all start trying to sell the idea to managements who tend to slap freezes on "non essential (non-customer facing) travel" even when things are going well?

As to venues, Sydney is easiest, Singapore gets my vote for the shopping opportunities, India for the sightseeing (to be taken after the conference) and because I have friends there with whom I'd love to catch up.

Cheers...

[Tristan Sternson]

Hi Lesley - Good point regarding travel freezes in companies. SCIP were hoping for a mid to late 2010 conference. Fingers crossed we are seeing some positive signs in the economy well before then (my glass is always half full).

-- Tristan