CONVIC - An Antipodean Clarion Gathering

by Chris Livingstone

Published 2003-02-14    Printer-friendly version

If you're not an Australian Clarion developer then there's a good chance you haven't heard of ConVic. Does this matter, you ask? Well, ConVic's been on the Australian landscape for five years now and for the last four, it's been the only Clarion conference in Australia. What's more, ConVic 2003 is coming up at the end of March - it's an opportunity not to be missed by Australian developers, and overseas developers who might like to consider combining the conference with a sightseeing trip down under.

CONVIC is a Clarion conference held annually in Victoria, Australia's second smallest state in area, the second largest in population. In case you're wondering, CONVIC stands for [Clarion] CONference in VICtoria; of course it's also a sly tip of the hat to Australia's past as a colony for criminals exported from England.

For most of the 1990s, Australian Clarion conferences were held in the heart of Sydney, but the high cost of airfares and accommodation put these Sydney Devcons out of reach for many developers living in other states. The humble aim of the first CONVIC in 1998 was simply to provide an opportunity for all Victorian Clarion developers to get together. The idea was to make the conference as inexpensive and accessible as possible, an idea which spread to developers from South and Western Australia who decided to join us in this venture.

For the last four years, ConVic has been the only Clarion conference in Australia, and so we've had participation from right around the country and even the odd overseas visitor.

CONVICs past

The first CONVIC was held in November 1998 in Ballarat, a large town 100 km west of Melbourne, with its history rooted in the gold rushes of the 1850s. After the success of this first conference, CONVIC 99 was inevitable. This time we moved right up into the mountains, to Mt Buffalo Chalet in the Victorian Alps. The conference was great, but the fickle spring weather meant that we missed much of the beauty of the mountain. In 2000, we met in Daylesford, a picturesque country town where gentlefolk retired to take the waters of the mineral springs.

Back to Mt Buffalo in March 2001, the end of summer; unfortunately, six months' perfect weather chose to break on the very weekend of our conference! The title "Clarion in the Clouds" was intended to be just a pithy slogan, not a literal description, but thick fog blanketed us the whole weekend limiting visibility outside to a few metres. Luckily there was so much on the program that we had little time for outdoor activities, but those who stayed on an extra day were treated to splendid vistas of the Australian Alps (much of it since devastatingly burnt in the bushfires still burning now).

CONVIC 2001 was great, endorsed by many as the best Clarion conference ever held in Australia. However, anyone who's run a conference of any sort will know just how much work and time is required to make it successful. CONVIC 2001 was no exception and it took its toll. With Clarion use evidently in decline in this country, it seemed that this would be the last of the regional conferences, possibly the last Clarion conference ever in this country. I certainly would never organise another Clarion conference!

But sometimes, you just can't help yourself, can you?

In this part of the world, Clarion developers are geographically very dispersed and there are very few occasions for catching up with others. Sure we keep in touch over the Internet but it's not the same as physically getting together.

Someone planned a one-day event in late 2001 but there was considerable disappointment when this was cancelled.

So I relented ever so slightly and decided I'd just "facilitate" something really low-key in 2002. No publicity, no big deal, no organisation, no prizes, no fancy stuff. Just a day for people to get together. All I had to do was tee up a venue and let people get on with it. I'd better organise some food but that's no big deal. It'd probably be a good idea to get a couple of speakers just to kick things off. Actually, it looks like we've got some good stuff here - it'd be a pity to cram it all into one day. OK, so now we've got a two-day event. I guess I'd better do something about accommodation. Ah, I've got just the venue. It's still low-key of course but I'd better work out a bit of a timetable. We'd better have a couple of extra people to fill in some blank spots. Right, that's it - it's another bloody conference! - CONVIC 2002.

What makes CONVIC special?

Several things make CONVIC special. First of all, it's held "out of town." Deliberately. That mightn't sound like a big deal to overseas developers who live in cities all over the country but down here, in a land of huge empty spaces, most of us live in just a very few big cities. In fact, half of Australia's population lives in just three state capital cities on the eastern sea-board.

Here in Victoria, three-quarters of the population lives in the state capital, Melbourne. However, a significant proportion of our Clarion community lives and works in country and regional areas. So while it makes sense for monthly meetings to be held in the capital city, a weekend conference is a good opportunity to acknowledge and cater for country and regional members by leaving the metropolis. Besides, it's a breath of fresh air for those living in the capital city.

Secondly, our conferences are residential - everyone stays on site. We've eschewed the city hotels and country motels in favour of conference venues which allow participants to relax and socialise. That's why a number of people have taken to referring to our conferences as "retreats," a very appropriate term.

Combining on-site accommodation with an out-of-town location has a further advantage. At the end of the day, participants don't suddenly desert back home to the suburbs, or to their own motels and hotels. Instead, they sit down, relax, go walking, swimming (if the weather's right!) and take the opportunity to catching up with others in an informal environment. Partners join in and become part of the group.

I've always believed strongly that the benefit of conferences goes well beyond the formal content. Of course content is important but equally important is the contact with other developers: sitting round sharing ideas, mixing informally, having a drink, chatting as you walk down to the beach, spending time over lunch, getting to know other developers, get new ideas, make new contacts.

 

Venues are important. Not just for the conference facilities but also for the environment and that intangible "ambience". If you live and work in the city or the suburbs, it's not much of a change if you step out of the conference room into bustling city streets and commuter traffic, even if it's a different city. It's much easier to put aside the cares, the pressures, the frustrations, of everyday life when you're in a tranquil rural environment.

Content is obviously central to a conference of any sort. While it's good just coming together every so often, you also need to feel you're getting something useful out of the conference. A good variety of topics is essential but it's also vital to have presenters who can communicate their topic. While I have some leniency with someone who has a lot of technical knowledge to share, I'm always aiming for a professional presentation. From the very first regional conference, CONVIC 98, I ditched the overhead projector and specified PowerPoint for all presenters. A few needed a bit of help at the first conference, but now everyone seems pretty comfortable. It certainly contributes to a much better presentation.

Presentations are also better when they don't go on too long. As you get older, time becomes more precious and we don't like wasting what we have left in this life. (Also, bladders seem to shrink as we get older!) From the start, I made a very strong point of starting and ending sessions on time, even if it meant cutting a speaker short. Feedback shows this has really been appreciated by participants even if speakers aren't always happy. In more recent conferences I've become a little more flexible, but only when there's been time available.

Dave Harms came out as a key speaker for our first conference and established a respect and friendship out here which endures to this day. The experience has not been forgotten by participants nor I suspect by Dave himself. But Dave spoilt us; since then, we've been badly burnt with overseas speakers who've promised but not delivered (or more accurately, they've promised then not turned up). Still, we've proved that we don't need overseas speakers to run a good conference.

Quite a few other things have contributed to the success of the five regional conferences held in this part of the country. One example: seating at meals. This is done by a random chance allocation. Sorry, but you can't hog a table with all your cronies nor can you wangle it to sit with the keynote speaker at every meal. The flip side is you won't be left out in the cold if you're a newcomer who knows no-one else; you have the same chance as anyone else of sitting with special guests or speakers. Above all, there's every chance that you will meet someone new or discover something different while enjoying your meal.

Is CONVIC successful?

OK, it's different, but is it successful?

If you measure success by attendance, then 30-35 participants probably seems a disappointment. But look at it on a per capita basis. Australia is a country with 19 million people (about the same as New York state, a few more than Florida, a few less than Texas) while the US now has around 285 million people. So by this measure, 30-35 to an Australian conference corresponds to 450-500 participants at a US conference. Put like that, you can't complain about attendance. It looks even better when you realise that CONVIC is still primarily a regional conference. It's not bad when you know that you're getting considerably more than 50% of the active Clarion developers in your state!

Feedback from participants leaves no doubt that we've found a winning formula. We haven't had one disappointed participant, no-one who's gone away and said "never again!". Typical reactions are "the best conference so far", "can't wait till next year's conference", plus superlatives enough to embarrass even the most blush-proof.

CONVIC 2002

Despite the low-key intentions, CONVIC 2002, held on March 23-24 2002, proved just as successful as the previous conferences. It was very much a local event with local speakers but that was no disadvantage.

From the weather-cursed mountain tops of the previous conference, I decided to go to the other extreme in 2002, right down to sea-level. To Geelong, a regional centre some 70 km south-west of Melbourne, a waterside city on the very large bay which forms the sea entrance to Melbourne. The conference centre blended in with the surrounding parklands, just five minutes walk from the beach. The change of location worked: we enjoyed fine warm days and balmy evenings. Several people took the opportunity of a swim, most preferring the pool and spa at the conference centre but more venturesome souls braving the sea water.

Like the previous regional conferences in Victoria, CONVIC 2002 was deliberately residential. After the formal part of the day was over, there was time for people to relax, wander down the beach, take a dip in the pool or spa, use the gym or just sit around chatting, before we all went for a leisurely dinner down by the waterfront. Later in the evening, some played pool or table tennis while the rest enjoyed the casual conversation with other participants and their partners. No distinction between city and country members here - we were nearly all in residence so no-one had to rush off home.

Geelong Conference Centre was a great venue providing good formal conference facilities but also plenty of areas for impromptu gatherings. There was no shortage of food and no one found any need to seek extra sustenance.

 

Despite the low-key nature of this year's conference, and the emphasis put on people meeting people, the actual content was still substantial. This time we adopted the approach used in some overseas conferences with fewer but longer major presentations.

In fact, there were just three major presentations, in the form of tutorials or "how-to" sessions. The theme became "Clarion + ", or Clarion Plus.

Bruce Cowan had taken on Crystal Reports as part of his work and was therefore an ideal choice for a session on "Clarion + Crystal". Chris Livingstone has spent quite a few months working with ClarioNET and this was the centrepiece of his presentation on "Clarion + 'Net". The third tutorial came out of left field but proved one of the highlights of the conference. Alex McCullie is a long-time Microsoft Access programmer as well as a Clarion developer; in the last couple of years, he has combined these skills by very successfully using Clarion as a front-end to Access and SQL Server databases. Tutorial number three: "Clarion + MS Access. Each of these sessions led into a wide-ranging discussion on the topic covered with much sharing of ideas and experiences.

We topped up the conference with some less formal but nevertheless valuable contributions from a couple of other stalwarts from this part of the world. Geoff Robinson covered both archiving and BLOBs in his presentation, while we welcomed Simon Brewer back into the fold with the old but still popular favourite review of third-party tools. As a broadening experience, there was also a look at another development environment which has been attracting some interest over the past couple of years. (Perhaps it's our isolation, more likely just commercial reality, but most developers in this country don't seem to have a problem recognising there is life outside Clarion.)

In preparation for his session, Simon Brewer contacted ten suppliers of Clarion third-party products, seeking information. I'd like to acknowledge the three who responded; they also generously donated prizes. Thanks to Susan and Arnor at Icetips, Bruce and his team at CapeSoft, and Gus Creces with his rather amazing Handy Tools. So popular was Simon's first session on the products from these three companies that we had to schedule an extra session.

From every aspect, CONVIC 2002 proved another highly successful conference. The open forum which concluded the conference showed that even with all the Internet communications now available to us, there is still very much a place for face-to-face contact and interaction. The unanimous call for another conference in 2003 in the same place was a very positive affirmation of the success and value of this event; I had little hesitation in booking the dates and venue for a conference in 2003. "We'll see you next year" was the parting greeting from most participants.

 

CONVIC 2003

CONVIC 2003 is a three-day conference, from Friday, March 28 to Sunday March 30, 2003, in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. This year we have speakers from all around the country and even a couple of overseas speakers (Gus Creces and Russ Eggen) providing presentations remotely!

If you've never been to a CONVIC, here's your chance. All Australian developers should mark it on their calendars. And we'd be very happy if some overseas Clarion developers could share the experience with us. March-April is a great time to visit this country and with the current exchange rate, it's a great value holiday.

Check us out at www.convic.org.

Chris Livingstone

Grand Poohbah, CONVIC

chris@convic.org

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Chris Livingstone has been a teacher for more than half of his working life, and a programmer for some three decades. He began using Clarion in the days of CPD and LPM, and now divides his time between Clarion programming, photography, and other equally challenging interests. Known for writing emails of near Tolstoyan proportions, Chris is possessed of a teacherly spirit regarding written material, user interfaces, pronunciation of kilometre, and sundry other irrelevancies. Has a penchant for organising things (ever since starting the anti-sport league in primary school), a trait which has not always sat well with the anarchic Clarion community in his native Australia. Chris has bossed the Victorian User Group around for three years (making it into a pretty successful group along the way), and has organized yearly Clarion conferences in Victoria since 1998 (CONVIC 2003 will be conference number six).

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