http://smartlabexchange.com/Event.aspx?id=369178

“DevCon” is nerdy developer-speak for “Developer’s Conference” so it’s definitely not a conference to attend if you’re merely interested in using the iPad in your lab.

I wanted to point-out that one of the speakers is from a place called “Big Nerd Ranch” and, as someone that does program, I particularly thought that sounded intriguing. 

Don’t just stop to look at the big conferences, either. Also look around your general area. Last night’s joint meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA between LRIG NE (Laboratory Robotics Interest Group – New England) and the Boston LIMS/Laboratory Informatics group had 152 registrants and had to close event pre-registration due to a limitation on the size of the room. That local event had more people that some of the conferences have had.

We could ponder that the reason for the success of such an event is that, by creating an event with a combination of talks on discovery informatics, ELNs, and other related topics, that that well fits that area of the country. It is probably a strong fit for the local interest.

That’s not to say that the larger events don’t have strong sessions, as well, and they will often have several days of talks, rather than a single evening as this particular local event had.

The trade-off tends to come with the time taken out of work. A large conference can be expensive not just from conference and workshop registration fees, but also from the travel costs, and from time off of work. However, it is worthwhile to consider that immersing oneself in a conference for a few days allows more time to learn and interact. The overall benefit is high, but the justification to do so can be more difficult.

As your own budget cycle comes up, this next year, keep in-mind that the cost of attending any of these events will almost certainly provide an easy payback when you go through the trouble to find an event that is well-suited to your own purposes. Make this next budget year the one where you set aside the money to attend one of these events.

With regard to the technical content of the meeting, one of the underlying themes was the continuing debate about the overlap between LIMS and the growing number of ‘Q/A ELNs’. Presentations from LabWare, Velquest, LabVantage and Waters tackled this issue head-on. It is interesting to note that after staying away from the ELN market for some years, a number of LIMS vendors are now adding ELN functionality to their products to move into this market space. The underlying strategy seems to be one of offering existing (LIMS) customers the ability to extend their implementations by adding ELN functionality, rather than purchasing a separate ELN system and facing the subsequent interfacing issue. This approach has its strengths and weaknesses which I’ll look into in another post.

For the first time in one of these meetings I sat through a workshop on Software as a Service(SaaS). SaaS is currently in the hype cycle when it comes to laboratory systems. But with an increasing number of commercial offerings and some potentially significant benefits to customers, it is becoming increasingly important to get some clarity around the benefits and limitations.

Laboratory automation, as an ‘engineering’ function, got a good exposure, and I’ll put together a separate post or two on this topic. The concern is that there is very little formal education that specifically addresses this topic, despite the fact that it represents a significant challenge for most laboratories.

My participation included a workshop on the subject of ‘Managing User Resistance’; here’s my slides.

Overall this was a good and enjoyable meeting and a refreshing change from the more passive style of conference that serves the laboratory integration market.

http://outonalims.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/in-boston-laboratory-informatics-is-important-but-people-still-matter/

From going to give a free talk for a colleague to attending the Boston LIMS/Laboratory Informatics meeting, yesterday was a pretty good day. Both those events got me more information and excitement than I get from my on-line discussions or my e-mail.

A couple days ago, John Trigg was talking about conferences, YET AGAIN, in:

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/09/conferences-again/

In fact, you’ll notice he and I talk quite a bit about getting out to conferences and how important that is. If you search TheIntegratedLab’s postings, you’ll find this out.

As I’ve said, before, I realize that many of you have had budget cuts that prevent you from going to the big conferences, but they don’t prevent you from going to local meetings. For example, in the Boston area, alone, there’s LIMS/Laboratory Informatics, ACS (American Chemical Society), ALMA (Association of Laboratory Managers), LRIG (Laboratory Robotics Interest Group). That’s just a very few of them! And, while a few do charge a modest fee, most of them are free to attend.

Just in the LIMS/Laboratory Informatics group, alone, we’ve had great speakers on biobanking LIMS, ELN issues, Wikis as LIMS, and on how to learn to run better laboratory informatics projects. The excitement at some of our meetings way surpasses the interest we show in any our our on-line discussions.

So, the on-line discussions are great for sharing information but just don’t have the same element of “chemistry” you get when interested people get together.

The other thing I liked about Richard’s post was the last three paragraphs, which echo some thoughts that have appeared on this site:

Learning how to tell better stories, not just write good narratives, is something all researchers should learn how to do. But, whereas there is a real premium put on writing good papers, there is little pressure to speak well before a group.

That is why the best places to be at scientific conferences is usually not at the presentations but at the bars and pubs frequented by the conference goers. We get the real story there because every human being knows how to trade stories with others, even when the group is just a bunch of researchers.

Now if we could just get more researchers to adopt this approach to their public speaking trips, we might affect some real change.

As has been said in other posts on The Integrated Lab, the added value that conferences offer is the informal, face-to-face networking opportunities of meeting other attendees, and sharing ideas and experiences. I’m looking forward to catching up with any current followers of The Integrated Lab at these conferences, and hopefully convincing others to come and join us.

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/08/conference-season/

As such, I want to remind everyone of a few more conferences coming up. So, in John’s posting, he mentioned IQPC’s ELN Forum:

http://www.elnforum.com/index.php

If you’ve read John’s postings and want to meet him and hear him speak, this is just one of a few good chances you’ll get to do so.

Also, IQPC all by itself has a variety of other conferences coming up, such as the Laboratory Informatics Forums:

http://www.iqpc.com/Event.aspx?id=205646

They seem to be holding one on the East Coast of the US in the Spring, another on the US West Coast in the Fall, with one coming up in San Francisco in October.

Also, IQPC has the venerable SmartLab Exchange in the UK each Spring:

http://smartlab.co.uk/

And for those of you in Italy, don’t forget RichMAC:

http://www.hta-it.com/en/events/richmac-2009.html

If you’re thinking, “Why bother spending the time and money on this?” then you should read my previous posting about this very topic at:

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/06/the-value-of-attending-a-conference/

The season kicks off (for me) at the end of September with IQPC’s 8th annual conference on ELNs and Advanced Laboratory Solutions. This seems to be one of the most established conferences on ELNs, although it relocated to Brussels from its original home in London 3 years ago. Over its lifespan, this conference has undergone incremental change from its early days when the ELN market was very new and few attendees had much hands-on experience, to the current situation in which an established group of ELN warriors can pass on their experience and war stories, and speculate on the influence of changing business and technology trends. I sometimes wonder how much more there is to say about ELNs, but for those who are already down that route, the emphasis is changing towards the topic of integration. And of course, there are still a significant number of organisations who have yet to convert.

The IQPC conference programme does a good job of satisfying both of these communities by incorporating a pre-conference focus day which is targeted at those new to, or in the early days of an ELN project. The main part of the conference brings together a number of case studies and opportunities to share experiences, concerns and discuss the changing laboratory landscape. And of course, there’s the opportunity to catch up with colleagues old and new, have a beer and put the world to rights – a priceless benefit.