Blog: Jill Dyche

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A River Runs Through IT: Musings on the Pacific Northwest BI Summit

In which Jill reminisces about her favorite trip every summer, remarks on Scott Humphrey's PR finesse, and shamelessly admires her new footwear. (Hint: They're not cute, but they're functional.)

Here’s how much I look forward to Scott Humphrey’s Pacific Northwest BI Summit every July: I have felt-soled wading shoes.

You’re probably thinking “WTF?” but then you’ve never been fly fishing on the Rogue River on a toasty weekday afternoon up to your waist in rushing water while your blood pressure drops ten points and the Steelhead mock you from the murky depths and friends get quiet and take the fishing seriously, but only because they want to share a good dinner with you when the sun goes down. Hemingway should have had it so good.

Meanwhile your colleagues are hundreds of miles away in offices with fake plants cursing incoming e-mails while furtively specing out Bluetooth stereo eyewear online and wondering whose birthday they’ve forgotten and whether the salami sandwich is really worth the treck downstairs.

Scott Humphrey is a master at bringing smart people together and combining lively BI dialog with industrial fun. Like last year, myself, William McKnight, Claudia Imhoff, and Colin White presented on all things data-enabled while a stellar cast of vendor heavyweights, media luminaries, and market analysts looked on and weighed in. We discussed data integration (Colin), operational BI (Claudia), RFID (William), and CDI (moi). We forecast trends, colored in client experiences, debated priorities, and basically had some great conversations about the industry on- and off-line. We never came up with answers to thorny questions about the future of the ODS (me: moribund) or when exactly RFID would stretch system capacities (soon) whether MDM hubs should store history (no), but that wasn’t really the point anyway.

This year’s Sunday evening tequila was even better than the tequila I raved about in last year’s blog. Don Julio 1942 is not a “shooting” tequila but a “sipping” tequila, smooth like brandy—but that didn’t stop us. Transcendent stuff.

But for me the fishing is always the highlight. As the water rushed around my ankles, then my shins, then my waterproof shorts started doing their job, I knew I was back on the Rogue, and that fellowship in BI was good, but fellowship in fishing is holy. And, thanks to those waders and the support of good friends, I didn't slip once.

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