I actually took a day off on Friday, so I didn’t get a chance to cover this until today.  Last week, while I was at ILTACON 2021, I sat down with “old friends”* Mary Mack and Kaylee Walstad of EDRM in their latest installment of their Illumination Zone podcast series to discuss happenings at the conference and the state of in-person conferences in general.

The Illumination Zone interview was conducted midday last Tuesday and we discussed everything from how weird it was to be traveling for a conference after 18 months, my impressions of the conference to that point, what some of the exhibitors were saying (you might be surprised) and how the current delta variant of the pandemic may impact other planned in-person conferences over the next few months.  On that last point, ARMA’s InfoCon 2021 conference which was scheduled to be in Houston in October (and at which I’ll be speaking) has just been shifted to a virtual conference, so that’s reflective of the recent trend for upcoming conferences to rethink in-person participation.

Of course, Mary and Kaylee make the interview fun, as always, and it hopefully provides a feel of the conference for those who didn’t attend.  You can check out the 28-minute Illumination Zone interview here!

Unless you live under a rock, you’re undoubtedly aware that Louisiana has sustained what Federal authorities are calling “catastrophic” damage resulting from Hurricane Ida, which made landfall yesterday – on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina causing tremendous devastation to New Orleans.  As I write this on Sunday night, we’re only beginning to become aware of the extent of the damage, but the entire city of New Orleans has reportedly lost power because of catastrophic damage to its transmission system.

Living in another Gulf Coast city (Houston) which experienced its own devastating storm in Hurricane Harvey four years ago, my thoughts and prayers are with colleagues like Tom O’Connor, Craig Ball and all the citizens of New Orleans impacted by the storm.  Hopefully, the aftermath of Ida won’t be near as bad as it was for Katrina back in 2005.  The American Red Cross and the Salvation Army are two organizations that are already helping those affected by the storm – please consider helping out through donations here or elsewhere.

So, what do you think?  Do you plan to attend any in-person conferences during the rest of 2021?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

*You’ll understand the “old friends” reference when you watch the podcast. 😉

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