By Debbie Lonsdale
Every year since I joined Dynamic Business Informatics over 12 years ago, I’ve been lucky enough to attend their annual Diver Distributors Conference in a number of beautiful cities around Europe, and meet counterparts and colleagues from Dimensional Insight and their other distributors. Over the years we’ve really got to know each other and it’s become like an extended family.
Travelling with all of DBI’s employees to these events was something I really looked forward to, not just for the chance to find out what was going to be included in the new releases of Diver, but for the social interactions: strengthening bonds and helping each other out with ideas and technical insights. It was fun as well as work!
And almost every year we have hosted our own Diver Conference for our users and contacts – to pass on the latest in Diver Technology, and allow our users to speak about their experiences in using Diver to enhance their work processes and deliver new ways of getting the best out of their data.
We loved meeting up with people for whom for the rest of the year we were only email recipients and senders, voices on the end of a phone and sometimes a brief visitor in their board rooms.
We had some great lunches and on special occasions an evening dinner with our users – celebrating our long relationships in the world of Business Intelligence.
But, as we’re all far too aware, all this travelling and meeting has had to be put on hold, with last year being a learning curve in the new arts of Zoom and Teams, when we started testing out the myriad ways of keeping in touch. We had “Coffee with Diver” as a weekly webinar, and DI are hosting their fortnightly “Knowledge Forum” – as well as having delivered their first online user conference for the US last year.
We miss you all!
So this year, we are working far more closely with that extended family of Dimensional Insight and other distributors, to put together what we believe is a really great online conference. As always we are so lucky to be joined by Fred Powers and Stan Zanarotti, DI’s founders, who will let us know what’s happening in the wider world of analytics and more specifically in their own lab.
DBI’s John Spillane, DI’s Michel van der Meer, and Infotool’s Gunilla Gustafsson have co-ordinated the sharing of technical tips and tricks from all over Europe in a Diver Expert Track, which covers both the front-end and back-end of the technology. If you’re less technology oriented we offer two other tracks, but you’ll be able to swap between them on the day to see whatever subjects interest you.
The Healthcare track includes input from DI’s Vice President of Marketing, Kathy Sucich who has recently graduated with an MBA in Health Sector Management (congratulations!). She will be sharing data lessons learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic. Our own Diver BI Group member Manitex will also be presenting in this track focusing on 3 areas where Diver has contributed to performance improvement, plus youth healthcare insights from the Netherlands and “State of Health” dashboards from Sweden.
We have also put together a packed Logistics and Finance Track – and I’m delighted to be sharing a case study about one of our customers, Corrib Oil, whose users have saved hours and hours of data input time by implementing a new Diver application. We can’t wait to share a case study from DSV in the Netherlands about their Diver operational dashboard, plus a Scandinavian collaboration which uses Diver to assess Credit Risk. We even have a presentation on Teddy Bear Metrics from Shaun Foaden of DI Netherlands – what are they? Are they wolves in teddy bear clothing? Find out from Shaun!
We have some interactive sessions following the 3 tracks – a chance to ask questions and meet the consultants – see the agenda for more details on this.
If you’re interested in honing your design skills on DivePort then Friday Design Day will be right up your street – you can choose from two time slots for a 90 minute course on Design on 11th June.
After having spent more than a whole year working from home, I’ve discovered, through the process of finding new ways to keep in touch (and preparing this conference), that we’re actually working more as a team: sharing ideas and collaborating more. And despite the lack of travel and socialising I’m 100% sure that this conference will demonstrate how close we really are – all the Diver users and consultants. It will bring us all up to speed on the latest Diver news and reinvigorate us for the rest of the year.
I can’t wait to meet up with you at the conference – and as they say in Ireland “don’t be a stranger!” – please join us!
Agenda – The Diver Conference
If you have already registered we look forward to seeing you online at the event.
If not then please
Register Now
Join us ONLINE on Thursday June 10th 2021
from 14.00hrs (CET) 13.00hrs (UK and Ireland)
About Debbie Lonsdale
Debbie Lonsdale has been working with the Diver Solution as a BI Consultant at Dynamic Business Informatics since 2008. Her previous experience includes computer programming, analytical and technical roles, team management, account management, sales and marketing in a variety of market sectors, including the Travel Industry and Distribution. She combines this experience as an all round ICT professional in the BI sector.