Gary Mintchell's Feed Forward

Continual learning

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:20:22 GMT

Getting Competitive

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:03:08 GMT

6 ways to help your kids

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:56:08 GMT

Posted at my new account. If you haven't resubscribed, please click the link and pick me up there. All six years of posts from here are also archived there.

Emerson Acquisition

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:20:11 GMT

Emerson acquires valve actuator company.

Associations

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:31:01 GMT

New post on associations.

Emerson Exchange news

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:59:45 GMT

Catching up on my huge backlog of news -- Emerson Exchange new products.

Nivis update

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:47:52 GMT

New post on ISA100.11a wireless.

New Posts at New Site

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:08:05 GMT

Couple of posts up at my new site.

New post

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:45:41 GMT

New post on ISA thoughts at my new site. Please go there and resubscribe. Thanks.

Catching up

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:14:40 GMT

My blog is moving. Please resubscribe to the new one. New post here.

Automation Minutes podcast posted

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:57:02 GMT

[Catching up on some unfinished business] I finally uploaded my interview with Dave Deitz, product marketing manager for DeltaV at Emerson Process Management, from the Emerson Global Users Exchange last week about the new DeltaV.

ISA Stuns Exhibitors at Expo 2009

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:40:15 GMT

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There were several product announcements at this year's ISA Expo, but ISA itself stole the limelight with the announcement that this is the last ISA Expo. In the face of declining attendance, declining floorspace sold to exhibitors, little-to-no interest by the major systems suppliers in supporting the show, ISA has decided to switch to a conference format for 2010.

The new name is Automation Week and is dubbed a "knowledge-based conference event, focusing on delivering critical knowledge on application of automation technologies in processing and manufacturing environments to top professionals." It will be held October 4-7 (note the extra day), 2010 at the Westin Galleria in Houston. It expects to continue to attract top educational, vendor-neutral speakers and serve as a central location for standards working group meetings.

"It's all about knowledge," says ISA President Jerry Cockrell. "ISA is a knowledge society. We have 30,000 members and we train, we educate, we run seminars and symposia, we have standards, books, educational programs -- everything we disseminate is based on knowledge. Weâo[dot accent]re excited about what ISA Automation Week can offer," he adds.

The conference planners envision a scaled-down exhibition hall with 10-foot booths in a ballroom. For comparison, I suppose you could imagine it as a much larger ARC Forum. I guess it remains to be seen if it will be a gathering place for the media--or if I get the week off.

Although this year's edition wasn't a "ghost town," it is surely a small trade show occupying less than half the ballrooms allocated to it. And tremendously smaller than its heyday years. ISA simply couldn't offer a value proposition to the large systems companies to bring back their large, expensive booths (and bring in their customers) in competition with the companies' own user conferences, which have grown significantly over the past six years.

Facing declining revenues for several years, ISA also outsourced its association magazine, Intech, and its electronic publications/email newsletters.

So, what is the future of ISA? Feel free to comment.