Thanks to everybody who came and supported the User's Conference. I think it was a big success.
Jim Blaine and his lovely wife Barb did a wonderful job setting up the meeting room, acommodations, and the CME portion of the Conference. Their organizational talents were very apparent.
The hotel was magnificent, with many wonderful amenities. I especially enjoyed watching the sunset over Lake Taneycomo with Allan Kirkland, Jim Blaine and Jon Bertman (and our families) as the Branson Belle steamboat rolled by, and smelling the purple sage.
All our speakers were excellent, and we had a lot of great discussions.
I was very surprised at how the Conference grew from a half-dozen folks getting together to put a face with a name (and to put our heads together about AC). Once Jon said he wanted to come, the thing exploded.
As mentioned above, we ended up with people from every part of the nation and overseas. We had people who had been using AC since the beginning (Wendell) to people who had never used an EMR. Plus, the creator of AC was in the audience! This actually made it a little difficult to know what level to pitch our talks to.
In the end, I think it worked out fine. Even the veteran users got to see some things they had never seen before. We tried to spend plenty of time with the newcomers answering their questions. By the end of the conference, I had many people who came up to me and said, "Learning [one particular thing] made the whole trip worthwhile, if I had learned nothing else!"
For me, one of the best things was meeting some of the folks I have been getting to know here. As has been stated many times, we sorely missed Bert who couldn't make it. It was good talking to Wendell Wheeler, who I liked right off. He is a tall, friendly, distinguished looking fellow, with excellent posture. Leslie Strouse is as sweet as she can be, with a lovely warm voice. Adam Lauer is a bigger guy than I imagined; the strong silent type.
Marty Sechrist is a really nice guy, very energetic and enthusiastic. I had never met Fritz Faust before, and I think adding him to the line-up was a stroke of genius as he is a total technophobe and added a dose of reality to the proceedings; he also has a great sense of humor. Tim Lewan (pronounced Le WON) volunteered to present UpDox at the last minute without any preparation, which was much appreciated. Of course, I had already gotten to know Jim Blaine before the conference -- Jim loves to meet new people and connect them with others -- he has a talent for remembering people and names that I do not.
My regret is that I was so busy with organization and speaking that I did not get to know more folks better on a personal basis. I hope that this meeting will be the beginning of some new friendships which will grow as we get together again in the future.
I will post more on various topics, and we do plan to make available the PowerPoint presentations, if there is a demand, as well as links to programs and products discussed. We did videotape, and we are waiting to see how that turns out.
As far as future conferences go, I think everyone is still shell-shocked, and some of us haven't even made it home yet. However, we are all open to suggestions.
