Oh! I like 45 minute breaks between classes – it allows me time to blog! This morning, I skipped the very first class (on campus-wide alert systems, by the people who managed Virginia Tech’s system) in order to get ready for my session. Sorry to anyone who wanted to learn more about how V Tech coped with the shooter tragedy last year.
My session was the second of the day and it went very well. The participants were active and asked great questions, as well as suggesting great ideas for mashups (maps of school bus routes, maps of school sporting events, maps of campus with pictures of the buildings in the descriptions and using Google’s directions feature to get from one building to another, etc.). The wireless kept going down during the session time, but we just did the ideas/questions part of the session while it was down and did the demonstration of Popfly, Pipes and Google Maps while it was up.
The third session was on disaster recovery. I have some work to do when I get back… There were some great bits of info in that session, all of which mean more work for Nikki & I! Asset tracking and the transition of disaster recovery planning to business continuity planning were the main themes. The presenter, an employee of Springnet – the part of Springfield’s utility service that handles telecommunications and data services – was really thorough about covering the requirements for a good BCP (Business Continuity Plan) and had several good ideas, including getting pictures or video of the server room to document exactly what was in there in a visual, quick-to-access way.
Nikki has been attending some good sessions as well. She’s covered planning ahead with public access PCs, Web 2.0 and securing public access PCs. She’s saying that she’s learning lots and is pretty excited about the conference and what she’s getting out of it.
Next is “real world wireless implementations”, which is apparently aimed at beginners who are in the planning phase of wireless, but might have some good info anyway. If it doesn’t, I’ll skip out early and come back to the room to rest before tearing up the Texas Hold ’em tournament tonight!
More later!!
