Many of you, like myself, make the pilgrimage year after year to San Diego every July – yes, I’m talking about the annual International Esri User Conference, otherwise abbreviated as ESRIUC, of for those of you Tweeps, #esriuc
It dawned on me recently that I’ve attended 16 in a row and should I get there this year this would make 17 – almost scary to think how fast those years have passed! Reliving a bit of nostalgia I took to Flickr to browse some of the thousands of photos that I’ve uploaded from the event over the years – sadly, my photo collections don’t start until 2004, that is when I joined Flickr – I’ll need to dig through some archival CDs to retrieve the years prior to that which are missing.
For me ESRIUC is very special, mainly because I’ve moved around a fair bit over the years. My address has changed, as well as my friends, co-workers, colleagues, etc… what has been stable though is the experience that I share with friends year after year. The UC gives me a chance to connect with colleagues, clients, partners, associates, and others – most of us have met via email, Twitter, facebook or LinkedIn but the UC manages to bring us together. This really sunk in recently when I looked through my Twitter followers (about 2500 strong) and to my surprise, from the geotech crowd I’ve actually met (face to face) most of the GeoGeeks that I’ve connected with on social media.
Browsing the images from the past decade is fun to see the trends and technologies that have evolved over the years. There’s reminders of amazing people that inspired us over the years like Jane Goodall, Will I Am, Richard Saul Wurman and countless others – a fond reminder for myself is an hour I spent in the suit of Dr. Roger Tomlinson discussing the evolution and history of GIS while Mrs. Tomlinson served us Tea – it really was an amazing treat!
UC enables me to meet the developers over a beer, have breakfast press meetups with CEOs, and see first-hand from the developers and innovators that keep the GeoTech industry growing and evolving. In a way, ESRIUC has become my chance to connect with my summer family (reminds me somewhat of Fever Pitch when Jimmy Fallon speaks of his baseball family).
Luckily, I’ve always been a bit of a photo nut and I’ve archived many of the pics I’ve snapped over the years. If photos are your thing then I invite you to take a bit of a history walk through the collection I’ve built up since 2004 – hopefully I’ll find images from the previous 5 years soon!
2014 – 223 photos, 115 views
2014 esriuc
2013 – 133 photos, 497 views (2013 map gallery)
2013 esriuc
2012 – 339 photos, 829 Views
2011 – 440 photos, 4481 views
2011 esriuc
2010 – 484 photos, 3319 views
2010 esriuc
2009 – 318 photos, 1915 views
esriuc 2009
2008 – 120 photos, 2394 views
esriuc 2008
2007 – 207 photos, 2978 views
esriuc 2007
2006 – 151 photos, 1733 views
esriuc 2006
2005 – 56 photos, 919 views
esriuc 2005
2004 – 150 photos, 1141 Views
I’ve captured several thousand photos over the years, however, several of them stand out above them all (that will follow in a follow-up article), but there’s one picture that was priceless and is easily my favorite moment that I was fortunate enough to capture… I’m guessing many of you have seen this picture!
My favorite photo from esriuc!
See all the images Glenn (@gletham) has captured at ESRIUC on Flickr
Do you have a photo gallery from an ESRIUC? IF so please share a link in the comments below…