Berlin 2009 Spring Conference
It's fair to say the conference was a success, with attendance exceeding expectations. We had approximately one hundred participants, which is not dramatically less than usual for the European conference -- and considering that as late as January we weren't sure we would even have a conference in the current economic climate, a very pleasant surprise.
We had great weather almost throughout, with a slight dip on the last afternoon, right after i commented on how great the weather was. apologies!
We got the immediate feedback that people liked the looser format -- more time between sessions -- which shows that the networking is (nearly) as important to the attendees as the presentations. We were very suavely led through the proceedings by our MC Peter Illing, and everything ran really smoothly with the setup; all the audio, etc. was without a hitch -- something not to be taken for granted!
On the content side, one unexpected common theme was testing. After Fysbee had held a workshop and presented their new tool at last year's Berlin conference, we had several testing-related presentations this year:
The Dräger Approach to Specification-Based Model Testing
http://www.configuration-workgroup.com/webfm_send/1287
Do More with Less Effort and Higher Quality via Automatic Testing
http://www.configuration-workgroup.com/webfm_send/1298
Cost Reduction and Quality Improvement is No Contradiction:
http://www.configuration-workgroup.com/webfm_send/1315
conCERNing SAP-VC
http://www.configuration-workgroup.com/webfm_send/1319
From SAP itself, there was an emphasis on "Solution Configuration", meaning configuration technology applied to a package of products, including services, to make up a complete solution. (at least, that's my attempt at a definition, comments welcome!)
Loyal Customers and High Margins via Solution Selling – How does it Work?
http://www.configuration-workgroup.com/webfm_send/1284
KabelBW - Offering Complex Rate Plan Packages
http://www.configuration-workgroup.com/webfm_send/1314
Personally, i was interested to see the SCE advanced mode creeping into the mainstream under the guise of the new CRM PME; you don't see anything overtly "advanced mode" while using the environment, but the 'code' that's generated underneath is advanced mode.
Product Modeling in CRM
http://www.configuration-workgroup.com/webfm_send/1313
All of the conference presentations can be found in the Document Share: http://www.configuration-workgroup.com/webfm
Marco's next .. but the location of 2010's Euro CWG has not been decided yet, so be on the lookout for a CWG 2010 in a European city near you!