Sadly, another OmniUpdate User Training Conference (OUTC) has come to an end. So many fabulous things happened at OUTC15! Where to start? I will pick just a few of my favorites.
Despite a few raindrops during the Sunday night reception, we were thrilled to see our customers from Mission College and West Valley College wearing their own "Love OmniUpdate" T-shirts. Check out their photo below!
(Left to right: Ken Oda, Donna Nguyen, and Daniel Niemann)
As always, OmniUpdate President and CEO, Lance Merker, did a great job kicking off our Monday morning session. More than 250 people crowded into the main ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Newport Beach to hear his reflective and forward-looking presentation aptly titled, "The Key to Web Success: Leveraging the Power of the Platform." This session set the tone for everything else that happened at OUTC15, including Tuesday's product roadmap and development discussions.
On both Monday and Tuesday morning, lots of loud laughs and applause followed the Matchmaking Game session selection videos. These opening sessions and videos led to a lot of social media fun within the #OUTC15 Twitter thread, like using the hashtags #moetry and #yvesdropping. We even had a Twitter contest with some fun trivia and gave away prizes to the following customers: Matt McCullough, George Makarian, Jason Cash, Nic Winn, David Burch, Lacy Paschal, and Lindsay West. Congrats to the lucky winners!
The 2014 Gadget Challenge winners were recognized (see winners below), and the 2015 Gadget Challenge was launched. Let the good ideas and code roll. We look forward to two new winners joining us at next year's OUTC.
(Left: Daniel Larkins from CSU Channel Islands - Dependency Tag Info+ working gadget; Right: Jenny Anspach from Central Methodist University - Broken Links gadget idea)
Our well-deserved 2015 Customer of the Year was C. Daniel Chase from The University
of Tennessee at Chattanooga (pictured on left). Besides being an all-around good guy
that makes us laugh, he has participated in many of our internal and industry-related
programs. Thanks Daniel!
Several new programs were discussed. The OmniUpdate Concierge Program was introduced to help our customers and partners work together to get smaller-scoped projects done more effectively. And, next quarter the new OU Marketplace will be available within the OU Campus CMS to improve access to gadgets and modules. It's an exciting time to be an OU Campus customer and partner.
Guests really enjoyed our dinner cruise and casino event (with play money, of course) in Newport Harbor. And, some of our fashionable guests wore their OmniUpdate hooded sweatshirts during the conference (pictured on right: Brenden Sparks from San Jose State University and Jose Garcia from Canada College). Check out some of the photos on Facebook and Instagram.
Plus, there were so many great customer and partner presentations and topic tables. Thanks to everyone who volunteered and made OUTC15 such a valuable event for learning and sharing.
