EWUG 2008 Survey Results

For the first time, we had an online survey.

The response was great! We had over 70 people responding to the survey. The most interesting thing part was that almost half (48%) of the respondents did not attend EWUG last year. We haven’t done a cross-check of the attendance list from last year and this year, but my guess is that about 2/3 of the 191 people this year were there last year, and the other 1/3 were not. So the survey might be skewed toward new attendees. With that said...

Most people thought the hotel facilities, location and registration process was “excellent”, while most thought the presentations, food, and vendor reception was “good”. The food received the most “poor” votes at three. Most of the comments on the (new) registration process were positive and there were several comments that have been forwarded to ESRI. We’ll most likely continue the new registration process for next year.

As far as the ESRI technology presented at the conference, only the Server and Mobile technology were slightly on the high side (a clear majority thought it was just right), which is not surprising given that the ESRI presentations focused on these technologies. Interesting enough, many people wanted to hear more about ArcGIS Explorer and ArcGIS Image Server. However, nearly an equal number of people didn’t care about either Explorer or Image Server, and most weren’t interested in ArcGIS Engine.

Most people were interested in GIS being used in “Planning & Land Development/Preservation”, County Government, Municipal Government and Natural Resources. State/Federal Government and Transportation and Local Utilities also got a strong showing.

A majority (53%) of the attendees said they will definitely be attending EWUG next year (Yea!), another 43% said maybe and only 3% said no.

Over two-thirds though that the same or lower registration fee was more important than more meals and refreshments. This is interesting, as this is a change from previous years. However, this year we had refreshments during breaks for the first time, so perhaps we have figured out the right balance.

This is a technical conference. Of the people that attended, most would recommended GIS analysts and technicians to attend EWUG. Few though would recommend it to executive management.

As for the types of presentations people want to see, most wanted to see user technical presentations. SO NEXT YEAR PLEASE TELL YOUR STORY! It is very important to say, you do not have to be a “guru” to tell your story. Most of us are not gurus, but still have to muddle our way through it all. People want to hear about muddling though it. That’s why we’re user group! Of course, people are very interested in project case studies and the ESRI sessions.

We also asked the question on what makes EWUG different from other GIS conferences. We hadn’t asked this question before and it was really great to read the response. The response centered around two themes. First, its great for networking with peers. You get talk to people who do the same stuff that you do (even away from home). Second, its more about doing the job and trying to figure out the better way of getting the job done. I should also mention that many people though the conference was a bargain, $75 for a 1-1/2 day conference is a value for the quality of presentations.

Last, I asked an unusual question. I asked “With the current budget/economic crisis, will GIS in your organization: a) become more important, b) stay the same), c) become leaner and meaner, d) become a memory. 60% of the respondents said GIS will stay the same, 30% said it will become more important, and only 10% said they will reduce (nobody said they will go away, but they probably won’t be attending a conference anyway). Many people also commented on the “Why” to there answer. It fell into two groups, either the cost of the software/training was too high for elected officials to bear, or the information provided by GIS technology would get us out of this mess.

With all this said, we’re looking to :

• Be in Madison for next years conference
• offer more “lessons learned” sessions for users
• offer more technical sessions
• include more student presentations in the conference
  

If you have some ideas on how to do next year’s conference differently please let us know. It’s a user conference, so tell us how we can better support the users.

I'll be emailing "save the date" notices around May, or just watch the blog.

Last if you haven't filled out the survey, please feel free to. I know we'll be looking at it again (especially the comments/open questions) as we start to plan the details for next years conference in the months ahead.