Last week I was fortunate to attend the 2011 Semantic Technology conference at the San Francisco Hilton at Union Square.  Given the length (Sun – Thu) of the conference and its technical detail the notes from the conference will be divided into individual articles.

In this first post I need to thank the main organizer, Tony Shaw and the San Francisco Hilton at Union Square for the power situation.  It’s clear that airport designers and technical conference venues use the same electrical contractor/consultant.  Their goal (learned through years of observation) is to provide as few power outlets as possible per person.  The United gates at LAX provide about 3 outlets per 10k people which is a feat.

Not so at the 2011 Semantic Tech conference!

It might seem like a little thing but it’s not.  The tables in almost every session at the 2011 Semantic Technology conference had a string (two per table) of power strips.  Simple, relatively easy-to-do and yet surprisingly rare.

When you are away from the office for more than a day or two being able to plug in a laptop to wall power is so useful that it passes the threshold of being a nicety and gets to be a necessity.

Again, kudos to the San Francisco Union Square Hilton and Tony Shaw / Mediabistro (the organizers of the conference).  Thanks!