A Trip to Vienna

Being based out of Brno, Vienna is a stone throw away so I was delighted when UtilityWeek was scheduled to be there. As it happened, the tradeshow/conference also coincided with Visotech’s user meeting and so, I attended both yesterday.

UtilityWeek does attract a lot of people – 5000 or so – but my interest is CTRM and related software so despite the huge hall filled with booths, I gravitated to the CTRM vendors with booths there – Allegro, Brady and Contigo. The ABC of UtilityWeeks CTRM section! I stopped by each booth to say hello and enquire on traffic and in all instances was told it was quieter than hoped when it came to attendees interested in commodity trading solutions. The scope of the tradeshow and conference is broad so perhaps this was not surprising? However, I did catch up with a number of people – of which perhaps more in subsequent blog posts, so it was a useful visit. I do think the facility in Vienna is really nice but boy, could it use more variety in refreshments and judging by the line to the self service lunch, more food outlets.

 

I then took a short drive over to Visotech’s user forum and caught a couple of presentations.

I must say that a presentation by Futurist – Peter Siljerud – was really compelling looking at all of the new technologies headed our way including robotics, AI, Zero UI and so on. The implications? Be prepared for change and yes, AI can do your job better and smarter than you can. In fact, much of the theme of the meeting was forward looking with external presentations on AI, machine learning as well as the future of the Visotech products. The Forum was crowded too and very well attended.

Armed with many insights into AI, ML etc., I left the meeting to return home filled with ideas and thoughts about the future of C/ETRM.

All in all and interesting and fulfilling day and, plenty of ideas for future blogs on CTRMCenter.

 

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