It’s been more than a week since PARTNERS concluded, and I’m still coming down from my Teradata buzz. At numerous presentations and informal chats, I learned about the exciting, innovative ways Teradata users are leveraging data. That’s certainly a theme for anyone familiar with Teradata Magazine. But even when I think I’ve heard it all, I learned in one session about a retailer that has developed a formula to predict sales of items down to the hour of the day. As a result, analysts will be able to track items that are selling at an atypical rate or when something is about to become out of stock at one of its stores. They will then be able to alert the store manager before the day’s purchase orders are made. This was just one of many innovations I learned about. As I sift through my copious notes, I find myriad nuggets of these types of ingenious initiatives.
At the same time, I met so many dedicated, brilliant business intelligence (BI) professionals. It was a veritable who’s who of data warehousing’s best and brightest—consultants, thought leaders and industry analysts, as well as Teradata’s customers, partners and associates—too many to name. Many of these luminaries have contributed or plan to contribute to Teradata Magazine, which is exciting. But even more rewarding was the positive feedback I received regarding the magazine. It’s high praise indeed coming from this group.
Alas, however, this moment in time is over, and all we can do is wait until next year for PARTNERS 2010, which is Oct. 24-28 in San Diego. Or do we?
For those of us who want relive PARTNERS—or those who couldn’t make the event—more options than ever are available to tap into this experience. Event photos can be seen at Flickr.
Several complete sessions can be viewed at Ustream. And short video reports and more are available on YouTube. Bringing together all of these social networking threads—along with blog posts from the conference—is a new interactive online hub, PARTNERS Connect.
So while PARTNERS 2009 may be over, opportunities remain to gain insight from the event, and gear up for 2010.
Mike Westholder
Managing Editor
Teradata Magazine
