A few years back, ESRI moved away from sending CD/DVDs of the conference proceedings (let's just limit the discussion to the technical workshops for now) because the content was getting posted to the website. Cost savings, environment, blah blah blah.
I went searching for the slides from a workshop FROM THIS PAST YEAR'S CONFERENCE and hardly of the slide PDFs are posted. What the hell, ESRI? Either post the stuff or give us back our mailed CD/DVDs.
Specifically, I was looking for "ArcGIS Server Performance and Scalability: Optimizing GIS Services." This isn't exactly a niche topic.
Personally, for an organization, the purchased recordings are well worth it since it has the presentation and sound all sync'd and can be share on a network drive for the organization (been very valuable for our agency). If you pre-order or order at the conference, it's much cheaper than post conference. Welcome to ESRI Online | ESRI Online for pricing...only $299 if you only want to stream (more reasonable for one-person shop).
Deborah Wilson is spot on- they absolutely WANT you to buy the recordings. I'm well aware of their existence and I have no interest in them. There's no doubt that the recordings offer a fuller experience but I am content with just having access to the slides.
How many times at a technical workshop has one of the ESRI staffers told the audience, "...if you didn't get that link in the slide, don't worry, the slides will be posted after the conference.."?
How many times at a technical workshop has one of the ESRI staffers told the audience, "...if you didn't get that link in the slide, don't worry, the slides will be posted after the conference.."?
I probably shouldn't throw my colleagues under the bus, but it's up to the presenters to upload the files either before/during/after the conference. We do get emailed (and reminded) several times to do so by the organizers. I've sent a note to one of the presenters asking about it.
