Now that GTC has come to a close, I wanted to look back and report on how the event went. Overall, it was probably one of the best technical conferences I’ve ever been to. Several things contributed to this, so let me break it down.
The exhibition hall
SuperComputing, SIGGRAPH, VisWeek, and pretty much every other conference I’ve ever been to that contained a vendor display area or exhibition hall suffers from the same problem: maintaining a useful concentration of people in both the exhibits and the technical tracks. At every show it’s the same story: the one interesting talk or keynote begins, and the exhibition hall is deserted save the vendors who must man their booths while waiting for the one latecomer to arrive and troll the floor, then the exhibition floor is flooded with so many people that presenters are talking to empty rooms. It devalues the entire event and frustrates vendors and presenters.
GTC solves this problem in an unusual way. I’ve seen other smaller conferences tackle this problem similarly, but never as successfully as NVidia did. The exhibition hall was only open from noon-2 and again from 6-8, and during both times food and drink were served. The rest of the time it was locked. Having the food there prevents newcomers having to wander out in search of meals, and convinces everyone to at least look around at the vendors. Vendors have the opportunity to venture out and check out some talks, and attendees don’t feel any pressure to choose between food, vendors, or technical papers.
Although it did have a downside. Since the hall was only open for 2 hours at a time, some of the more popular booths were swarmed with people, all hoping to get some hands-on time with the latest gadget. I’m sure vendors loved all the attention, but it made some booths a bit crowded. Also, the few technical talks on the last day fell into the trap of “If you want to know more, feel free to stop by our booth and…oh wait” as they realized the exhibition hall was closed and wouldn’t be opening again.
Content
I’ve been to several VisWeeks and SIGGRAPHs and frequently found the technical talks disappointing. They always seem to fall into one of 4 categories:
- Type 1: presenting some proprietary technology that, while really kewl, you’ll never see. This frequently comes from the ILMs and Pixars of the world.
- Type 2: presenting some piece of code or algorithm that while fascinating, it’s not publicly available in any form that a normal person could use. It’s available as an obscure library or MATLAB scripts, completely lacking any documentation.
- Type 3: presentations so confoundingly technical that you need a PhD even to stand in the room.
- Type 4: presentations of readily available and useful technology.
While some of the first three is to be expected, even desirable, all too often the number of “Type 4” talks are so tiny as to be counted on one hand.
GTC pleasantly flips the usual, and is almost entirely these real-world uses and products. The few algorithmic and pie-in-the-sky talks were easy to find, and in just the right balance to show you what’s possible today and what’s on he horizon.
The big difference: the focus
Perhaps the biggest difference between GTC and a conference like VisWeek is that GTC is not a profit machine, and NVidia shows no signs of making it such. You’re not hounded with coupons, discounts, and sales pitches. The registration packet had a coffee mug, the proceedings, and a few pages on after-events like the charity dinner Thursday night. A sharp contrast to the 20 pound bags you get from other conferences that fill you up with free magazines and postcards.
The conference is not run to push sales or increase enrollment, but rather to push CUDA anf GPGPU technology. The fact that NVidia is sub an engineering-heavy company means they know exactly what’s important in a conference and stop there. They know the big 3 of every geek: free food, cool gadgets, and minimal effort. The RFID badges made sure every technical talk had plenty of room (no standing in the back, juggling your laptop and proceedings), and nVidia brought some serious projection and display technology to the event, making sure every single room had a massive screen that was crystal clear from anywhere in the room.
NVidia knows that the value of the conference is the information , not the sales. Pushing the edge of GPU technology isn’t just good for the industry, it’s good for nVidia too, so they don’t need to gouge you for wifi (free), food (free), drinks (free) or registration (not free, but have you compared it to anything else? Cheap).
Conclusion
This was my first GTC , but only the most recent in a long series of technical conferences I’ve attended. I have to admit it wad the best organized, most entertaining, and most educational conference I’ve attended in almost a decade. With over 250 hours of technical talks, and roughly 2000 attendees (my own informal estimate), it had the kind of small informal atmosphere that makes these conferences great.
GTC2011 can’t get here soon enough.
Note: Some of these photos come from NVidia’s Flickr Photostream.
