My wife asked me if I wanted to make a vacation out of the conference next year, so I started checking into the dates.
July?? What the heck? San Diego in July? I thought the ACSM conference was usually in April? I can handle April, although things usually start picking up around here in the spring. Come summer, forget it.
How does this co-sponsorship improve our profession nationally? It seems to me that there is the whole east coast Colonial Surveyors being left out of the national group, or at least not really taken into consideration.
I am all for the inclusion of GIS into our National Group but not interested in a corporate sponsorship that dictates the Land Surveyors.
I read that this years Esri conference was 49% Land Surveyors, imagine if they made it a real national conference in various regions through out the country instead of at their convenience.
I am very discouraged at this recent trend and hope for better days ahead.
They need to understand that there is the "bread and butter" members, such as myself with a membership going back to 1980, that deserves to be taken into consideration. We are not all presenters, academicians, or commercial Rep's. There are some of us that would like to participate, too......
It may have to do with venue size, and proximity to the majority of the attendees and dates that the majority can handle.
Next year it will be ESRI/ASCM. When you consider GIS, surveyors are a VERY small part of the group covered. I'd expect more city employees and other government agencies than surveyors. It's the beginning of the end.
Well aside from the GIS / Surveyor arguement, I can't think of a more beautiful place to visit in July...should you decide to come. Avg temp in San Diego in July is 85 or 90. Especially if you stay close to the coast.
Cape Cod is in it's glory in July!
The San Diego Convention Center........
........bills itself as the 24th largest convention facility in North America.
That indicates that there are 23 other places larger, and probably just as many near as large. Odds are that at least a few of them are in the East, the Mid-West or the South. Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, New York, Washington DC, Cleveland and Indianapolis all have convention centers with more space than San Diego, and there are numerous others as well.
It's nice that ESRI doesn't have to move itself across the country anymore, but maybe the rest of us might like a little consideration.
ACSM used to have conferences in many large US cities....there's no reason that can't continue, unless ACSM has decided to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of ESRI.
First of all, when you talk about ACSM, you’re really talking about NSPS since almost 90% of the membership of the ACSM Member Organizations is in NSPS. Second, less than 10% of the licensed and registered surveyors in the United States belong to NSPS. That’s less than 4000 members.
With such meager support from its constituency, there’s no way ACSM can produce a national conference that would be worth attending. The GITA/ACSM/APLS conference in Phoenix last April had over 20 technical sessions and over 40 workshops over a five day period. The revenue from two or three hundred ACSM members wouldn’t support that kind of event. They have to partner with somebody.
In the past, ACSM has partnered with state associations, which resulted in the regional conferences some of you long for. But if the state associations won’t agree to partner for a national conference (which has been the case recently), ACSM has to look elsewhere. Hence the ESRI partnership.
Talk to your state associations. If they would agree to partner with ACSM for a national conference, I'm sure the ACSM staff would be happy to work with them.
ACSM/Esri combined conference-Rich
Will do! The combined conference in Providence was the best I have ever been too...
The arguments are sound, for sure, just disappointing.
Rich, that is exactly right. It's ESRI that stepped up to the plate when ACSM needed help.
The most annoying part of any trip is actually at the airport, once you're in the air, does it matter if you fly 2 hours or 4? I'd love to go to Cali in July and will keep my eye on making that happen next year. Also, I'm thinking that by doing the conference in the same place for three years in a row, it will make it easy to get a feel for the town and see all the sites. Everytime you go to a new city, just as you're about to leave, you finally know your way around. Now you'll have something to look forward to for the next year.
Andy
Rich is correct, except, NSPS makes up 90% of the membership of the 3 Member Orginizations under the ACSM Umbrella, but only has 2 of the 8 votes on the current ACSM Board, and 2 of the 6 votes on the future ACSM Board. CAGIS is withdrawing from ACSM effective 31 December 2010. That will reduce the size of the ACSM Board. If you want ACSM to have a conference in your region, talk to your NSPS Governor about how to make it happen.
Don
Just a point of correction. 49% of those attending the ESRI Summit (Engineering/Surveying) conference were surveyors. That was the pre-conference Summit but not the actual ESRI Users Conference which continued after the end of the Summit. Somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 attending or visited that part of the conference.
I think only 400 or so were registered for the Summit.
Here is an excellent read on the pro's and con's. I think Dan posted it once before but Erik understands and explains the dynamics pretty well.
Deral
Maybe I am unclear in expressing my disappointment.
I support bringing the GIS community into the National Surveyor's conferences, or the surveyors into the GIS world.
I am disappointed by the timing of the event, July, a busier time than in the middle of winter or early spring, late fall.
And the location, are we really going to have the next three conventions in San Diego? What about the rest of the country? What about us small guys that don't have the resources to make the trek across the country each year? How about Colonial Surveying and it's issues? How many PLSS surveyors want to hear about that on the west coast?
I know that there are Professional conference attendee's in each branch of life, but i think that the majority of land surveyors work for themselves or small companies and we need to stand up, be counted, and demand some attention!
I will talk to our NSPS governor and current President at our state convention next month.
