RE: JESS: ORF 2009 - question on dates

 

___________________________________________
Ronald Taylor, Ph.D.
Computational Biology & Bioinformatics Group
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
902 Battelle Boulevard
P.O. Box 999, MSIN K7-90
Richland, WA  99352 USA
Office:  509-372-6568
Email: ronald.taylor@...
www.pnl.gov

 

To those who attended October Rules Fest last year, and those who did not, we're doing it all over again - only better.  Counting the half-day of tutorials on Monday (if we have enough sign up for it) this year will be four full days of top-notch speakers, the absolute best-of-breed that can be found in the rulebase world.  

For example, returning to ORF this year will be Dr. Charles Forgy (inventor of Rete, Rete 2 and Rete III), Gary Riley (inventor of CLIPS), Mark Proctor (inventor of Drools), Carlos Serrano-Morales (inventor of Advisor), Carole Ann Berlioz-Matignon (Early Advisor designer), Jason Morris (Jess guru and advisor on the Jess mailing list), Dr. Leon Kappelman (University North Texas, Enterprise Architecture), Dr. Daniel Levine (University Texas Arlington, Neural Networks), Dr. Rick Hicks (Texas A&M, Validation & Verification), Greg Barton (Testing and applications), Rolando Hernandez (Model Driven Approach to Rules), Dr. Jacob Feldman (CBP using OpenRules) and Dr. Gopal Gupta (University Texas Dallas, Constraint Based Programming).  

New to the group of ORF speakers this year will be John Zachman (Zachman Enterprise Architecture),  Daniel Brookshier (UML Guru from No Magic), Eric Charpentier (Ruebase expert) and Dr. Hafedh Mili (Rulebase Consultant and professor at UQAM) from Canada, Paul Vincent (Tibco CEP guru), Charles Young (CEP guru from the UK), Luke Voss (Rulebase guru), Manny Gandarillas (applications), David Holz (Rulebase Patterns) and Andrew Waterman (Modeling and Network Gaming using Rules). 

The Agenda has been set.  We are negotiating with two hotels, both of which are located in the middle of the downtown-Dallas restaurant district, in order to get the best deal for you - meaning the speakers and the attendees.  For either location, we already have selected a pub-night location for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  We should have that resolved within the week and it will be posted to the web site.

Considering that you will be able to chat with the founders of the rulebased world as well as those who contribute to its advancements every day, you would get more in the way of "training" than if you attended ten vendor schools.  Not that the vendor schools are not necessary - but this is a once-a-year adventure that crosses all lines of rulebase theory, tools and applications.  This is where you will discover and discuss radically new advances in rulebased systems and have the God-Fathers and God-Mothers of the rulebased world over the past 40 years to help you understand how we got here.

There is only one drawback - by getting a first class, quality hotel in the middle of the restaurant district for the same room price that we had last year, we will have a limited number of seats.  Considering that we have 30 speakers, we will be able to accommodate only 170 attendees or so.  Therefore, it will have to be first come, first served on attendee registration.  Remember, you still get the 20% discount for early sign-up.  

AND, there is no charge for the tutorials - I think that we are the only conference NOT to charge for tutorials and I would like to keep it that way.  But, we still need for you to sign up for tutorials IF AND ONLY IF you actually are going to attend them.  Remember, we will have to rent the room and provide refreshments for the tutorials just like the main conference so, if you are not going to be there, please don't sign up for them.

Finally I would like to point out that we are NOT professional conference people - just rulebase consultants getting together with rulebase vendors, rulebase customers and other rulebase consultants to share what we know with each other, to better understand the inner workings of a rulebase and to help make cutting-edge, technological advances in the industry more easily understood by all.

Last year you asked us for more Q&A time - so we have allocated daily Q&A sessions at the end of each day.

Last year you asked us to find a quieter place for pub nights because there was more Q&A (and lots more A) at the pub than in the conference itself.  So, we did.

Last year you asked us to find a hotel closer to the restaurants.  Well, point your Google Earth to 1400 Commerce Street in Dallas and just look at the restaurants close by.  And that does not include all the ones that we will post later on the ORF web site after we have visited them and added them to the list.  Anything from MacDonalds to The French Room (a five-star - three Michelin stars - restaurant).  BTW, the trolley runs down the street of the hotel and connects to off-site parking so you don't have to negotiate downtown traffic.  And there is a shuttle from the airport to the hotel.