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1) A Virtual Business Process Conference
I am linked in with a group of individuals who are looking at the concept of merging virtual environments with the world of business processes. There are a number of underlying reasons for doing this, but one of these is to allow processes to be designed and prototyped in a virtual world. The prospects are quite exciting. The group itself - under the leadership of Theo Priestley - has started things moving by creating a virtual Business Process Conference. The conference is called Process 2010 and will take place in March next year. This BPM showcase offers the most up to date insight on business process strategy and operational agility and will feature process excellence studies and successes across all industries, Workshop tutorial sessions and Keynotes on both old and new methods, and looking at advancing process management using new combinations of techniques and tools such as GIS (Geospacial Information), Workflow Artificial Intelligence and Virtual World Process Simulation. So why 'virtual'?: as Theo say's:
In today’s current economic climate, cost reduction is king. What better way to reduce over-burdening costs for flights and accommodation as well as the attendance price than to remove them entirely. No need for ‘justification’ kits or lengthy arguments on ROI.
By far the two biggest advantages are that (a) with the price of a single ticket, you can broadcast your attendance within your organisation so more people can actually gain advantage of keynote speeches, presentations and workshop sessions. You’ll be assigned an Avatar per attendee thus increasing the scope for coverage should you purchase more than one ticket and (b) Sponsorship and marketing packages not normally within reach of smaller organisations can now be accommodated and advertising space can be reserved according to your budget available.
Networking is obviously another great usage of the world space, and with the ability of Skype you can hold private conversations without finding a huddle space in a dark corner of the bar.
Holding this event in a virtual world brings other advantages:
- Reduces travel time, expenses, and headaches
- Removes the need to reserve blocks of hotel rooms
- Weather conditions are no longer a factor (it’s always sunny in a virtual environment!)
- BYO food and drink, convenience breaks to suit you not everyone else.
- No long walks between presentation and exhibit locations: Avatars can teleport and fly (don’t worry, you’ll be taught how by our hosts)
- No lines at the toilets or the bar….
If you are interested or want more details click over to the conference page here and register as either a participant, a sponsor or a speaker. I am very interested in this and am fully intending to either speak or participate when the time comes.
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PROMIS Solutions from Switzerland are holding one of their regular TOGAF training courses for those of you interested in Enterprise Architecture and this time it is in Amsterdam. As this will be the first course they have given in the Netherlands they have decided on an introductory fee of 1.400 EUR for the 5 day course including the Open Group certification cost. This is excellent value for the course. The course runs from 11. May until 15. May (five days). If you wish to participate then please check out the Pro-Mis training web-page and contact them directly. Mention GCP Consulting to make sure they know how you heard about them.
(After registration you will receive a course confirmation, the invoice and detailed information about the location as well as on transformation and lodging if required. Payments have to be credited to the account at the latest four week before the start of the training course. Training courses can be cancelled until four weeks in advance without any charges. For cancellations less than four weeks in advance 50% of the training course price will be due, if no acceptable replacement can be found. For cancellations on the day of training or non-attendance the total training fee will be due).
