MISA West Conference 2009 – Kamloops, BC

It’s 9:15pm… I’m sitting in Calgary, AB on a 2hr layover before my flight, which, puts me home sometime around midnight.  But… such is the life for someone living in the middle of (no where ) the prairies in Canada.

I’ve spent the last few days attending the 2009 edition of the MISA (Municipal Information Systems Association) Conference in beautiful Kamloops, BC. 

For those unfamiliar with this conference, it is a gathering of IT professionals from municipalities, districts, and regions in Western Canada.  Besides the great social events, including the MISA Open at The Dunes (which btw our team shot a respectable 2 over), the conference provides 3 days of sessions and presentations covering a wide array of topics from IT Governance, disaster recovery, and IT Leadership, as well as presentations from many municipalities. 

Keynote speakers included: Ray Kurzweil who discussed how the IT world has growing exponentially for10 -15yrs and provided some interesting insight into what the future will bring.  Many musicians might recognize the ‘Kurzweil’ name, as Ray was the first to develop a music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, which was one of the many other technological developments from his career.

Today’s keynote speaker was Derek Hatfield who is an adventurer and the first Canadian to sail around the world. Alone!  “Starting in September 200s2 and ending in May of 2003, Derek completed over 28,700 nautical miles in the Around Alone Single-handed Yacht Race. Despite major obstacles along the way, Derek was one of nine international competitors to finish the event.” A VERY interesting person to listen to.

Another great session was 3D Digitial Cities.  Are you Ready? which was presented by Mike Schlosser.  Mike is always a fantastic presenter and this session was no exception.  As you can tell from the session title, Mike discussed the future of 3D digital citiy models and some of the challenges that face municipalities from an IT perspective.  Some of the components that are going to make up 3D digital cities in the future include: GIS, CAD and BIM data, and it is really about aggregating and integrating this various data.  By moving a this direction, organizations such as municipalities, should be able to more effectively collaborate, visualize, analyze, and simulate a multitude of scenarios to solve the many different business problems and issues including sustainable design.

The was my first time attending this conference, and was quite impressed by the overall experience.  The conference was well organized, the food was very good, and the entertainment and networking opportunities were great.  I met, and talked to a number of people over my 3 days in attendance and in my discussions I found that many people seem to be experiencing and dealing with similar problems and issues.  A common theme seemed to be that most organizations are attempting to do more with less, and many attendees wore many hats and had multiple responsibilities.

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

Comments

[twitter.com/kamloopsPaul]

Warren, it was a pleasure to have you and your team out here with us in Kamloops, I really enjoyed it. Hope to see you or Kevin out this way again sometime.

cheers,

Paul de Zeeuw
City of Kamloops

[Warren]

Hey Paul, it was great to meet you, and thanks for the golf tips! :-) I'll be sure to look you up next time I'm out that way.