Insights 2019, Who's not going and wish they were :)

Hello Aaron,

I had the same issue and here what came up…I ended up really not able to go, but there is value added at going as you are able to gain experience at fast pace atteding such events.

My own post about same subject

Aaron,

This is a good question, and I had to do some justification for my trip as well

From my perspective, and I know my perspective is a little unique because I’m neither a user or a programmer etc of Epicor however I manage the team/consultants we use that are, there are two reasons that it is worthwhile.

1> Contacts. I currently have access to as many people as I can physically talk to, and I know they’re either A> epicor experts, or B> with companies that use Epicor. Most of the time I’m either contacting people over email or phone or if lucky skype etc. This allows me to meet dozens or hundreds of affiliated parties in person. There’s really no amount of money I can put on that personal interaction and ability to meet. And yes, if I could list my criteria, and you could guarantee that you could give me the name and number of a consultant that would perfectly fit that criteria, I’d pay you several thousand dollars for that information. Because having a consultant that does something in 1 hour vs one that does something in 10 hours just saved me $. The first project they do, I just recovered my spent money for their info, their second job I’m now well ahead on ROI.

2> Education - For me having the volume of resources available in once place at one time, and having dedicated MY time to that purpose is worthwhile. I have hundreds of users and multiple locations, so much of my day to day is tied up with managing any of a hundred users, or vendors, or facilities issues etc. Having dedicated time to focus on finding out WHAT Epicor can do, is invaluable for my ability to guide my companies utilization as well as my employees and contractors workflow. And I know I can sign up for these classes in other forms, but here, everyone in my company knows that I’m out of the office, doing this event, doing the training etc, so they know to not interrupt me, and since I’m physically here, they can’t come into my office “for a quick issue”

Now, to address your question/thought about independent consultants, it’s a tax writeoff which most companies and 1099s love, as well as the ability to meet ME, because I’m always looking for consultants.

SO shameless plug… for those independent consultants that did come to insights 2019, drop me a line, I’d love to meet and discuss your area of expertise

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I agree with Jeremy. As someone who has sold and supported many ERP systems over decades, I can say that most annual conferences have turned into nothing but boring ‘salesfests’ of ISV’s trying to sell you something.

Yes Epicor has some of that, but unlike most other publishers, they still provide alot of strong technical content and ‘what’s coming’ like content that makes the conference worth it. So unless something changes, I say it’s worth going to. If you are an independent consultant, your clients expect you to stay up on the constant changes in the product. if you can’t invest a week a year to do that, you will become out of date compared to your competition.

As an Authorized Partner, we demand our consultants go to Insights (at a large cost to us) and in addition continue to take continuing education programs and certifications to ensure we can stay at the cutting edge of improving our clients implementations.

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Mandalay Bay doesn’t have HBO in the rooms. :roll_eyes::grimacing::astonished::face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

What? That’s outrageous! Clearly they are from the Jon Snow School of “Knowing Nothing”!

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After being on V8 for the last 10 years we are finally looking at moving to E10 this summer and I am sure Insights would offer so much, even to someone who has just ‘learnt on the job’ like myself. However, coming from a smaller company in the UK the costs are just too much to justify :cry:

@tmat I was in the same position at my last job after many years of empty promises I bit the bullet and just went myself. It was expensive, but I learnt more in 4 days, met more people than I could have hoped. It put me in good stead for future…Needless to say I don’t work where I was any more.

I can appreciate the costs are a lot to take for a small business, but you have to weigh that against the ongoing maintenance they pay. If your not using all the modules you’ve paid for, because of lack of knowledge, it really is an economical way to quickly get up to speed. The Epicor Education courses are great, don’t get me wrong, but you can’t beat speaking to people who have been there already to get some first hand knowledge.

Good luck with the upgrade and don’t hesitate to ask questions.

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i do not know is it good or bad luck that UK insights ONLY last for one day

it does not interfere with GOT :joy:

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I did go to an Australian one quite a few years ago now. I think one the highlights was XL Connect…

Epicor has changed a lot since then so it may be better these days.

that is why it is back to Nashville next year !!!

:wink:

But I can tell you with certainty, HBO Go works just fine and I got my GoT.

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One way to cut the cost, are the sessions available online? Say we pay the full attendee price, (but without the hotel, travel and food costs) That may be an alternative for those unable to attend? It is not the same of course, not having interactions with peers, but at least having access to what was presented?

Pierre

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I will definitely be keeping an eye out for anything that may pop up online that will help :slight_smile:

ME !! I have never been and I hope some year I will make it.

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Quite surprisingly staying in Vegas was inexpensive. I am not sure where you guys book your hotels but I stayed at the Luxor for 120$/night cheaper than Red Roof and they upgraded us due to capacity issues to some better room. Once I stayed in a nearby Villa full furnished apartment for about the same.

The Food was priced normal, the flight to Vegas is probably the cheapest flight I’ve ever paid for.

When a Business isn’t able to save within 12 months to send atleast 1 person and rotate them. That’s poor planning or they just don’t want to send you… or as Cardone says, you got bigger problems… But… when you look closer at how much money they waste and throw away for stupid stuff, makes you wonder. I’ve been at business where they never sent their people but they won’t even price shop when hiring a Consultant… Heck they will even hire a WinForms Developer to do Web Development at 300$/hr and then they wonder where 600K went and why the site isn’t usable. :slight_smile: Then when you audit the charges, you realize they charged you 2000$ to download a jQuery Plugin and make it run on a id within 2 minutes.

Overall, Genuinely it is a great ROI. Even more so, it is a great kick in your butt, once you see the size of the convention, the professionalism, the community of 1000’s of people; you come back realizing Holy Crap this Epicor ERP sure is something, perhaps i’ll make it a career for the next 50 yrs and not just a “job”. You get pumped, motivated, writers block disappears and for atleast the next 3 months you become a Customization Releasing Machine, your backlog gets butchered by that drive.

In other words, it’s also a vacation for your mind that has been fighting with Epicor Logic for the last 24 months from 8am - 5pm every single day!

:slight_smile:

Lastly, you appreciate your employer for investing in you, so you end up doing 150% more every day because you felt invested in and assured that they want you to become the best version that you can be. Knowing that the knowledge you acquired resides only in your brain and is yours to keep.


Some Employers won’t even send you to a 35mi away Epicor Users Group Meeting, which costs 10$. They simply have shit leadership in place that thinks you can google your way out of anything and that networking in this day and age can be done over LinkedIn. But then they go out to a dinner parties, golf outings and not with prospects; but with buddies and expense every penny to the company. :wink:

Or the worst offender… Meetings where it costed you 5000$ of man hours and it all literally could have been an email. Literally! “Lets get all 25 people together for 45min, to get their opinion on if the color red or yellow is nicer”. Just send a stupid outlook poll, stop keeping people hostage for 45min while everyone gives their personal opinion and you end up picking the color you like anyways.

Once they start to track how much goes to waste, they could have sent the entire company to Insights :slight_smile: AND Become a Sponsor.

Its weird how much one price shops when he/she is dealing with their own money. But how little price shopping, comparison or research is done when its on a Company Card and the trigger is pulled immediately even for things that are “nice to haves”.

Like… So you purchased a Dedicated Server QUAD Core CPU… CPanel… 64GB of RAM for 350$/mo to a host a html website, with a size of 800kb… Yeah the companies paying for it… Wait, but if it was your own money you would probably realize that Hostgator as crappy as it can be for dynamic pages can host html files for 5$ actually just fine or mediatemple for 20$… Your Landing Page just became one expensive html page :slight_smile:

Rant over, I hope some employers reading this, will realize that - if you really want to send someone, you could… If you audited your expenses, you will find stuff you can cut and probably even realize who to terminate due to excessive spending… You are welcome.

To be fair, they also don’t need to send us, me, you every year - I am okay every 2-3yrs.

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Followed by poor project management :slight_smile:

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Its weird how much one price shops when he/she is dealing with their own money. But how little price shopping, comparison or research is done when its on a Company Card and the trigger is pulled immediately even for things that are “nice to haves”.

Like… So you purchased a Dedicated Server QUAD Core CPU… CPanel… 64GB of RAM for 350$/mo to a host a html website, with a size of 800kb… Yeah the companies paying for it… Wait, but if it was your own money you would probably realize that Hostgator as crappy as it can be for dynamic pages can host html files for 5$ actually just fine or mediatemple for 20$… Your Landing Page just became one expensive html page :slight_smile:

Rant over, I hope some employers reading this, will realize that - if you really want to send someone, you could… If you audited your expenses, you will find stuff you can cut and probably even realize who to terminate due to excessive spending… You are welcome.

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Listening to a Podcast on the Intrrazone with Scott Hanselman…“People Learn From Others” Conferences such as Insights and sites like e10help, help make that happen.

In organizations where Epicor is deployed there is only one person, (sometimes obtained the role by default) it is really important for these people to get out and about, and remember (which I remind myself often) “There is no such thing as a dumb question”.

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That one person has been me up until the last year… I started in admin, then production and although I have loved working on all the Vantage stuff it was a huge learning curve. We created a new position last year which means I have a new boss that can help teach me rather than me trying to pick it up as I go along though so that’s been a big help :slight_smile:

Although most of what I have created would not have been achievable without forums like this and being able to take something and play around with it so a big thank you to everyone on here too :smiley:

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