There will be an IBM Security Reception until 8pm in the MGM. If the past repeats itself, then it tends to be loud and chaotic and not the best place to continue conversations from the user group so it might be useful to come up with another place to meet up after.
There will be many BigFix sessions at IBM Think 2018 as well. See the Google calendar above as well as this attached PDF: THINKBigFixFlyer.pdf (795.7 KB)
I’m trying to get my flights and schedules arranged now. When you say “Sunday afternoon”, is that more like 3pm local time or 7pm local time? Right now I have a flight getting me in at 5:40pm and if the user group is going to be earlier, I’d like to go ahead and work on a rescheduling.
The meeting has usually been on the earlier side so even 3PM might be late. The planners I believe have it starting around noon so far but again that can change.
We have some NEW BIGFIX customer that are attending this year - I assume they do not need to register for this but just show up (they are attending THINK).
I will coincidentally be on this side of the country on this day, so I’d really love to come to this – when you say no registration required, does that mean separate registration from the conference, or it is literally free to attend? $2200 is a little steep for me to convince my employer to spend for me to go to one event at the whole conference (it would be a quick stop on a vacation to San Francisco). Anyone in the know aware of any way to get a guest pass or some otherwise discounted rate?
The Sunday User Group is a separate registration from the Think conference itself. I don’t believe you have to be a registered, paid attendee of Think to go to the user group only so an IBMer probably can confirm. But I’m pretty sure you can just bring a keg of beer and somebody will slip you through the side entrance.
alinder - at my InterConnect 2016 I didn’t need to be a registered conference attendee for the Sunday user group. The conference didn’t officially start until Monday morning. Maybe this year is different? I was a paid conference attendee that year but I hadn’t gotten round to picking up my badge yet so I showed up badge-free and it wasn’t a problem. No one scanned me until Monday morning at breakfast.
This has been my experience for the many years I have attended the sunday user group, but isn’t something we can promise will be the case. You shouldn’t need a conference pass to attend just the user group, but you MIGHT.
I believe you can get 1 day passes to the conference or just the EXPO that would be cheaper but that doesn’t start until Monday anyway, so it is a bit of a grey area.
I saw this online with a registration for community day which includes the BigFix usergroup. It says I’m already registered. I already a registered speaker though so not clear if you need a full or daily conference pass.
It seems that the Sunday User Group / Community Day is going to be different this year and an official part of the conference, which means it will required a conference pass of some sort. I find this to be a net negative and I don’t really understand why they didn’t do the opposite and make it open to everyone since that is the point of the Community / User Groups.
There is a special pass for the Sunday+Monday for $970 with Promo code TK18CDP used during registration: Think 2024 | IBM
They will be serving Lunch on Sunday as a part of this which they didn’t do before, which is probably part of why a pass is required.
FYI: There are a few gaps in the conference schedule where there currently appear to be no BigFix session being given. I’ll try to organize some unofficial BigFix gatherings during some of these times, plus times where there is a conference wide keynote. It is always a challenge to figure out the best places to do this.
Also, I’m working on a Public Google Calendar with events for all of the BigFix sessions at the conference, plus receptions and other events. This is where I will post the unofficial BigFix gatherings in addition to on the forum here.
Also, don’t forget to checkout the IBM Events app. (Not working for think yet)
If you find any sessions that you think would interest BigFixers but don’t have “BigFix” in the title, let me know and I may include them.
again, this isn’t finished, needs locations and some other tweaks, but don’t feel the need to do this as I’ll provide this calendar which you can add to your devices or import into your calendars.
