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Boston MacWorld Conference and Expo - July 2004
One of the first things I noticed about this year's east coast Expo was the fact that it was a "Conference & Expo" instead of an Expo and Conferences. Obviously the emphasis had changed.
The Boston Exposition and Conference Center is huge. The literature that the BECC put out says that they could play 16 NFL football games at the same time. Of course, that is without the stands. The area reserved for MacWorld's floor show was less than one football field. I was told that less than 70 vendors were represented, but not all of them had booths as the Apple Specialists Booth contained such companies as MYOB, AccountingEdge and Microsoft. But, I get ahead of myself.
On Monday, the Apple User Group Advisory Board put on the User Group Leadership Conference. After getting by a bunch of Secret Service agents there to protect Senator Kerry, I found the UGLC meeting site just in time for the kick off of the sessions.
We started at 12:45 with Lesa Snider, President of Cowtown MUG, ran a session on "Great MUG Graphics: Tips & Tricks" at 1:00. At the same time, Chuck La Tournous, Publisher of RandomMaccess presented "Committee of One: How To Build & Maintain Your MUG's Website with Little or No Help." Since I was the volunteer host in Lesa's room, I got to hear her presentation. Lots of advice on what resolution to make graphics based on the eventual use and other hints and tips.
At 1:55 Gary Adcock, President of the Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group, had a session that was entitled: "Starting & Running a Final Cut Pro User Group: The Unique Challenges." But it really was a presentation on ways to make meetings appeal to users as well as how to do fund raising. Gary is the most exciting speaker I have heard in a long time.
At the same time, Sarah Friedlander, a campus user group leader, was presenting Attracting Youth to User Groups. I really would liked to have heard what she had to say, as we really need more non-gray headed members.
After a break Terry White, MacGroup Detroit did a session for all attendees on "How to Plan and Deliver Successful Meetings." Terry of course, is well known to MUG members as an Adobe presenter, but apparently he does a lot of presenting to the MacGroup as well. He pointed out the necessity to plan at least three months in advance so that everyone can know what is going on and they can plan their attendance. Of course, he gave many more pointers. It is to bad that more leaders weren't there to hear.
AT 3:55, Pat Fauquet, of Washington Apple Pi, talked about "Lessons Learned" during her two year stint as President of the Pi. Lesa Snider presented "Tips & Tricks for Getting Your Website Found" at the same time.
At 4:50, Maria Arguello of a Philadelphia's MacBus did "Planning Cool MUG Events". Her group had planned meetings with Bob Levitus and even a major even with David Pogue. Of course of no less importance was a MUG picnic. She had good ideas for promotion and funding of such events.
Meanwhile, Chuck Joiner in the other room was doing "Cool Newsletters Without Really Trying." Apparently the main focus of his presentation was where to get quality material for the group's newsletter.
At 6:00, we ended and then went to an Adobe presentation. Terry White gave a great presentation of Adobe Suite CS and showed us how it can be used for multiple input. This was to be done remotely with sites theoretically in New York, Boston and Paris. He switch baseball caps with each change in the U.S. complete with Richard Crispin posing as the Statue of Liberty for New York, and with a stuffed Lobster on the desk for Boston.
After the presentation, there were a lot of door prize drawings with the grand prize being an Adobe "letter jacket."
After the meeting, my hostess, Ilene Hoffman, and I went to the Boston Final Cut Pro User Group meeting. We got there in time for one presentation on some plug-ins for Final Cut. I won a book on "Using SoundTrack" by Douglas Spotted Eagle.
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