You! Gee! Em!
Today was the first day of Epic's annual User's Group Meeting, which kicks off with a big ol' meeting the first day. (You can tell I used to live in the South because I use the descriptor "big ol'".) This involves dressing up in a suit-and-tie (I've worn my suit maybe once since last year's UGM, and ties are instruments of The Evil One) and sitting listening to the company president and a few clients and consultants give speeches for several hours. This is actually not too bad, but it's not really value added to my life.
The afternoon involves a focus group for each application. I demoed our product's new capitation system, which seemed to go well. (Joke du jour: "You can tell it's test data because there are only three patients in the system.") Incidentally, our product - a Managed Care system - is Tapestry, the name for which I came up with. That's why they pay me the medium-sized bucks, I guess.
Epic has started having themes to UGM. Last year it was Raiders of the Lost Ark, and this year it's Star Wars. I have no idea what copyright issues are involved here; I wonder if they're even explored? Anyway, people were encouraged to dress up in outer space garb for the dinner tonight, to which (given my general objection to wearing clothing-that's-not-my-day-to-day-garb) I said "yeah, right".
Actually, a number of people did get dressed up (a few as the Men in Black; they had the pose down, too. I bet this will be a popular Halloween costume). The DJ played a lot of SFtional soundtracks, and then launched in the 70s & 80s dance music, which attracted quite a crowd.
I admit I've never quite understood the attraction of dancing. Yeah, I know it's a courtship ritual, but it always seemed like the ritual of last resort to me (i.e., aren't there better ways to get close to someone?). I especially don't see the attraction of dancing to bad music (which is what most "dance music" seems to be. Michael Jackson? Eeuuggh!). On the other hand, I did meet a new Epic employee who recently graduated from my alma mater, Tulane University. Sounds like the quality of living in New Orleans hasn't improved since I was there. He's also a baseball fan, and might join my fantasy baseball league next year if we have an opening.
Incidentally, much of UGM is being held in Madison's new Frank Lloyd Wright Convention Center. This is one of those city boondoggles akin to a new sports stadium; it's not expected to turn anything near a profit, and will thus be heavily underwritten by the city. It will attract some out-of-towners who will spend money at some downtown stores catering to transients of that sort, but won't do anything to really revitalize downtown (which is decaying mainly because so many people are moving to the east and west sides, and the commerce is following them). Moreover, the city seems to think an exclusive Convention Center Hotel is needed, despite the fact that there are three perfectly good downtown hotels, and the city-wide hotel vacancy rate averages 40%. What a mess! But it's very loosely based on a Frank Lloyd Wright design (Wright is a native son, more or less) and the city likes it, so it got built.
Of course, I'm not opposed to all city projects: I'm in favor of a new plan to study the feasibility of a light (i.e., commuter) rail system running through the city to the suburbs. Unlike the Convention Center, several private developers seem to think this is a good idea, and one has already stated that he'd be willing to underwrite the cost of some of the infrastructure because he apparently feels it will be profitable. I admit, coming from Boston I'm prejudiced in favor of public transit, but I do think if they do it right, and eventually expand it to go to adjacent Wisconsin counties, it could be a great boon to the area.
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