Thanks to the company that I’m working for – General Electric – I was able to attend Qonnections 2017 (#Qonnections) that took place between 15 – 18 May, in Gaylord Palms Resort, Orlando, Florida.
Almost 2 months have passed since the event took place, and it is about time to share with you my thoughts and takeaways from the event.
Most appropriate would be to start from the place itself.
[heading align=”left”] Venue [/heading]
To say that in America everything is big would not be an exaggeration – especially for the guy that was in United States for the first time.
Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center is huge, without map you would most likely get lost and would not be able to find your room 🙂
There are 2 places in the hotel (apart from of course Swimming Area / Convention Center and real alligators) that are top notch.
First from dinning perspective: Old Hickory Steakhouse, delicious pieces of meat and great service.
Second from chilling / networking: Wreckers Sports Bar. Full pints of beer, and place full of Qlik geeks.
[heading align=”left”] Monday, May 15 [/heading]
Registration, Gadgets and Discovery Expo.
Reception was open from around 12:00PM, no need to rush from early hours 🙂
Pair of smartphone attache lenses was given to each participant of the conference, not much of a photographer I’m but still cool gadget.
Starting from around 7:00 PM you could go and check the stands of Qlik partners, make some connections, get another set of gadgets and check out what other companies are building using Qlik.
[heading align=”left”] Tuesday, May 16 – Keynote [/heading]
Have you seen Google I/O or Apple Keynotes during theirs conferences – Qlik is on the same level period.
Link to whole keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpSnTEd88E4
Leave data where it is – checked – wise concept of not moving data back-end forth;
True hybrid cloud platform– checked – didn’t get much of details here / or more precisely don’t know if I’ve understood that correctly – middle layer between cloud (like AWS) and on premise machines? Indexing engine for your data?;
Augmented Intelligence – checked – enhance technology to support human decision – with stunning new Qlik functionalities like advanced integration layer;
Releases Naming Convention changed – checked – starting from June 2017 QlikSense releases will be Name Qlik Sense <MOTNH> <YEAR> Release and will be delivered in 10 weeks – 5 releases per year;
Qlik & IoT – checked – Mesur.IO and Qlik in a live demo. Looking at Anthony Deighton watering a plant on stage during Keynote – priceless. In addition visualizations and “near real time” data processing in Qlik from IoT devise;
QlikSense your QlikView – checked – converting QlikView applications to QlikSense functionality;
Visual Data Preparation for Developers – checked – never used that but apparently it is an option and new functionalities are coming;
New Charts and Colour Intelligence – checked – more robust colours management for your KPI’s in charts and new types of charts – box plots / histograms;
Qlik GeoAnalytics – checked – enhancements to geospatial visualization and rendering;
Advanced Analytics Integration – checked – R & Python integration as a starter; Big – Data indexing engine, Cognitive Rules Engine – more advanced / predictive capabilities (ex. Give me your data and I will create automatically for you set of insightful dashboard – said QlikSense to Business User);
Mobile Offline – checked – what if you could grab an application (or part of it) from your server and work with the data in airplane mode – this is what mobile offline is meant for;
Bot’s bot’s everywhere – checked – conversational analytics demo (part of keynote but hosted at Wednesday general session due to technical difficulties) – how to talk to / write to a bot on your phone and get insights from your Qlik Sense applications;
[heading align=”left”] Wednesday, May 17 [/heading]
General Session:
- Jake Porway Data for Good
- Lars Björk UN Peacekeeping Powered by Qlik
Definitely Jake Porway is the person that you want to check out, work that He (and His Team) is doing is helping people all around the world, and you can be also part of it!
Qlik RAD Party
This one was massive, live music, lip-sync battle, games section (table football, pool, arcade games) all marked with Qlik, good food and free beer / wine what else would you want.
No pictures though – no time for any 🙂
[heading align=”left”] Thursday, May 18 [/heading]
General Session:
- Jason Silva Cognitive Framing for Innovation
- Ray Wang Using Data to Disrupt Business as Usual
Seeing a person with such huge amount of positive energy and passion like Jason Silva is not something that you see frequently, and Ray Wand discussion panel gave a lot of insights at what other companies are looking when using Qlik, and how it is helpful for them.
[heading align=”left”] That’s the end folks [/heading]
A lot of insights, great ideas and examples, couple connections established, hell lot of fun time.
If you are wondering if it is worth money, time and effort, STOP – it is – just watch this video as a confirmation of what I’ve just written: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J3fe7c39D4
Meeting people with great passion for product that they are building and people that are then using this product to make even greater things is priceless.
There is not much about technical sessions that I’ve attended in this post, no worries, will share most of the points that I’ve learnt from them, so keep your eyes (and browsers) open.
Thanks,
Krzysiek
[heading align=”left”] Qonnections 2018 [/heading]
Date: April 23-26,
Place: Rosen Shingle Creek, Orlando, Florida
Details: http://www.qlikqonnections.com/
Don’t miss it!
