2008 Conference Summary provided by Bill Schlough, CIO San Francisco Giants.
........"Now that we have all recovered from an action-packed few days in Miami, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on a few memories and lessons learned during my first ALSD-IT conference:
On Sunday…..
We had a decent showing from the IT crowd out at Miami Shores Country Club, where Ken Logan and I joined Lynn Blecha on the links. While heavily outnumbered by the Luxury Suite crew, we did win the technology arms race with an array of impressive gadgets including range-finders, motorized pull-carts and Callaway trampoline drivers. But ultimately, we were unable to overcome the ALSD group’s superior skills and preparation—perhaps they have a bit more time on their hands?
We gathered on the Loew’s lawn for what we thought was going to be a fully catered reception. Upon arrival, we observed that ALSD attendees appear to subsist on a liquid diet, so those of us seeking more solid food were forced to find substance elsewhere.
On Monday……
The day started off in inspirational fashion as we listened to Arizona Diamondbacks President, Derrick Hall, share his views on the role of IT in sports. Derrick elicited numerous chuckles and nods of agreement as he described the (oftentimes unrealistic) expectations that team executives have of their IT Chiefs and the challenges that we all face on a daily basis. He relayed his leadership philosophy and confided that, in his opinion, the next generation of team Presidents and COO’s will emerge from our ranks, due to technology’s growing influence and our ability to understand and regularly enhance all aspects of the business. ……My biggest takeaway: Christine Stoffel is lucky to have such a cool boss.
We then moved on to a panel session worthy of a gathering of Fortune-100 CIO’s, where John Gallant (CEO, Network World Magazine) moderated a forward-looking discussion featuring Nortel’s CTO, Phil Edholm along with the CTO/Founder of Juniper Networks (Pradeep Sindhu) and Infoblox (Stuart Bailey). The mere presence of these renowned leaders demonstrated the significance of our industry, as technology companies are increasingly looking to the sports world for emerging trends and are jockeying to transform our facilities into showcases for their latest product offerings.
Speaking of turning facilities into technology showcases, John Pollard from Microsoft took the stage in our next session, revealing his plans to transform Microsoft’s “stodgy” image. John talked about how the hilarious Mac/PC ads have really impacted consumer perception—and his job is to fix this. For the first time, Microsoft is truly engaging with sports teams and facilities to create immersive experiences that showcase Microsoft’s full product line, from Xbox to Vista. OK, maybe not Vista…
Over lunch, Steve Kedzior from Insight and Steve Ryan with the Arizona Cardinals described their unique partnership at University of Phoenix Stadium and talked about how they have built an incredibly flexible and scalable IT infrastructure that plays an instrumental role in driving revenues. They also received a key assist from Brian York, Insight’s project lead at the stadium, who saved Steve from a potential PowerPoint disaster. ………My main takeaway from this session: never use the same slide to start and end a presentation.
Next came the always challenging post-lunch “food coma” timeslot, where Chris Dill (VP & CIO, Portland Trailblazers) took the reigns and moderated a rousing discussion of wireless ballpark applications featuring Dave Curry (VP of IS, Seattle Mariners), Steve Reese (IT Director, Houston Astros), Tim Hayden (Founder & CEO, VividSky) and Brian York (Insight’s University of Phoenix Stadium project manager / PowerPoint whiz). This was a very interesting session as we learned of several different wireless applications that are available at sports facilities today. As wireless device penetration rates continue to explode, that there may actually be a “killer app” out there that has the potential to enhance the fan experience and drive revenues for teams.
We wrapped up Day One’s business agenda with our first roundtable session, where Sasha Puric (Director of IT, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment) and Bruce Swindell (Executive Director of IT, Jacksonville Jaguars) kicked things off by asking the group “What is our value proposition?”, “What keeps us up at night?” and “What keeps us going?” This led to further exploration of topics such as PCI compliance, email archiving and Microsoft Vista. My notes are a bit fuzzy and may not be completely accurate....but I think they say we are all 100% PCI compliant, all teams have email storage completely under control, and we’ve all committed to roll out Vista across the enterprise by the Q3/2008.
On Tuesday….
The day started early, particularly for me, Bill Schlough, as I drew the short straw and kicked things off at 8AM with a panel discussion featuring representatives from the three leaders in the video board/digital signage industry: Dave Belding from Mitsubishi Diamond-Vision Systems, Chris Mascatello from ANC Sports and Rob Zeller with Daktronics. The seven of us who had gathered in the room at 8AM decided to delay the start by ten minutes to give all the wild partiers a bit more time to stumble in. Video displays have historically been the domain of Marketing or Ballpark Operations, but this is changing with the move to HD and an increasing reliance on IT to move content throughout the facility. Hopefully the folks who were able to stay awake through this session learned a thing or two from our distinguished panelists. I was delighted to see so many hands go up during the post-session quiz, when I asked how many people it took to install the Nationals new 102’ x 47’ HD video board. The answer, courtesy of Chris Mascatello, for those who slept in: “two guys and a power winch.”
Our second roundtable session followed, deftly moderated by Tod Caflisch (Director of IT, New Orleans Hornets) and Chris DiMaurizio (VP of Technology Solutions, Comcast Spectacor). Disaster recovery was the topic of the day as Tod relayed the Hornets experiences recovering from Hurricane Katrina. Staff recruitment and retention were also discussed at length, along with an array of related topics.
Next came a lunch session with Andy Dolich, current COO of the San Francisco 49ers and former executive with the Grizzlies, A’s and Warriors. Unfortunately, I missed the lunch session and snuck in a quick swim out in the Atlantic. So all I remember from the lunch session is sand, sunshine and bikinis. Of course, that’s probably all that a lot of the ALSD attendees remember from the entire conference!
Following lunch, Ken Logan (Director of IT, San Francisco Giants) had the challenging task of wrangling a six-person panel covering a wide range of topics all loosely related to ballpark POS. The group included representatives from Blackhawk Network, Quest Retail Systems, DNC Sportservice, Ticketmaster, Agilysys and Paciolan. Panelists discussed a variety of emerging technologies including loaded tickets, gift cards, wireless concessions, kiosks and the move toward ticketless facilities.
Finally, in the last official session of the conference, we packed the house with ALSD attendees joining their ALSD-IT brethren to listen as Tery Howard (VP of IT, Miami Dolphins) moderated a panel discussion on Customer Relationship Management with Chris Dill returning to the stage along with Lynn Blecha (VP of Strategy & Services, Statera) and Brett Michalak (CIO, Tickets.com). While every team defines CRM a bit differently, it is clear that this remains one area where IT has a genuine opportunity to impact revenues in a direct and measurable way.
Finally, we wrapped up ALSD-IT 2008 with a trip to Dolphin Stadium where we watched the Marlins handily defeat the Washington Nationals in front of a near-capacity crowd on a cool, dry Miami evening. Well, at least it was cool and dry in the Club Level, where we relaxed and enjoyed the game on approximately 693 huge HD LCD TV’s, accompanied by Dolphins cheerleaders. David Enriquez, Director of IT for the Marlins, provided behind-the scenes tech tours and even offered to introduce a lucky few of us to the Manatees. Not sure if anyone took him up on that offer. http://florida.marlins.mlb.com/fla/fan_forum/manatees.jsp
Thanks to everyone for attending ALSD-IT 2008 and we look forward to seeing you all in Dallas next summer!
Bill