COFES Russia is a history now. I wanted to put some thoughts and links for non-Russian speaking readers about what I call “COFES: Russian Style”. COFES in Arizona designed as a four-day event. Brad Holtz defines it as “vendors, analysts, users in sandals, under the sun, near the pool with beer”. To bring such an experience in the fast running Moscow with some rain, traffic jams, metro and Russia food and alcohol was a tough goal. Despite all constraints, organizers did it! I’d like to congratulate David Levin of LEDAS and Brad Holtz of Cyon Research. It was absolutely unique experience, in my view.
COFES Russia Online
The online coverage of the event was extremely powerful, in my view. Sometimes, I found myself hard to decide what to do – to join conversations in the room or to follow twitter messages from @bradholtz, @deelipmenezes, @cadovod, @MaksimTer, @xagsm and others, including live pictures from COFES sessions. Excellent work done by @cadovod by publishing isicad 2010 – CAD Photo Gallery.
Next day, we’ve seen photo reports and blog articles. Below is a short list (mostly blog posts).
COFES / isicad preparation: day before by David Levin.
isicad COFES Russia by Olga Kalyagina
isicad 2010 Plenary Session by @cadovod
isicad-2010 / COFES Russia held by David Levin
isicad-2010 Highlights by prosapr
Below is a short snap of pictures and videos published during the last week online.
Preparation meeting day before in Hotel Borodino (photo isicad)
@Brad Holtz and I having some engineering discussion on the street (photo isicad)
David Levin, @cadovod and I during COFES (photo Olga Kalyagina)
Sessions: Success and Failure
The content of COFES Russia was extremely packed. After first sessions made by David Levin, Brad Holtz, we’ve seen multiple presentations made by vendors. I just want to repeat what was said by many people – “vendors, please stop your marketing”. Deelip even wrote in his twitter – “I must say, this is not the COFES I know. Some vendors are making blatant sales pitches. COFES is about discussion, not selling“. Afternoon, situation changes completely.
COFES Plenary Session (photo isicad)
I’ve been leading discussions in the working group – News and Trends in PLM/PDM. One hour is a very small amount of time for almost sixty people and such a big topic. However, most of the conversation was around the first topic only – How Consumer Internet and Social Media can influence PLM products and technologies? I’m going to publish a quick summary of results separately. There are few pics from this discussion below.
Another session, I attended was about Social Media and Marketing lead by Elena Konvisar from Neolant. The discussion was running really hot, especially about the topics of what should be professional skills of modern marketing leaders in an organization.
The last workgroup session I attended was about new business models in CAD and PLM lead by Dmitry Popov from Nanosoft. I liked this session. A lot of absolutely important topics were raised there – OSS, free, CAD software and commodity.
Dmitry Popov of Nanosoft, Martin Steuer of Autodesk and I discussing CAD/PLM business models.
What I missed?
It is funny, but there is one thing I absolutely missed in COFES Russia. It was a synchronous translation. Obviously, speaking both languages, I didn’t get translation gadget. Speaking later with English speaking attendees, I found that synchronous translation worked very well. And it was clear by seeing how all English native speakers participated in discussions.
Unfortunately, there is one big thing I really missed on COFES Russia. And these are conversations between sessions. Breaks and offline discussions are the absolute value of the original COFES. This value was missed completely. It was “a mission impossible”, taking into account COFES Russia agenda packed in one day and very short breaks. But I don’t want to blame David for this organization. This organization was the only possible one to bring COFES to Moscow, and I’m sure next COFES Russia forum will take this “lesson learned” into account. Offline, I already heard discussion about taking next COFES outside of a city for 1-2-3 days to make it relaxing as isicad forums in Novosibirsk.
My conclusion. It was an excellent start. I liked COFES Russia style. I’m looking forward to COFES Russia 2011… maybe? The short conclusion of people during the final round-table was to continue. Following isicad tradition, David Levin privately said – “This is the last one”. However, he said it after isicad 2006 and 2008 too :). You can see more photo from COFES Russia / isicad-2010 by navigating your browser on the following link.
Best, Oleg
