MyEvent - is it or isn't it...?

Having returned from the conference I was keen to look at the presentation promised in the comprehensive session handouts. On Friday one representative from the CIPD sales team returned my call and left a message. When I spoke to the member of the team he told me that due to circumstances beyond their control the presentations from Harrogate would not be up until mid week at the earliest... not what was suggested in the notes from the conference session suggest that they were available immediately... but that is one the joys of being an early adopter.

It is a shame as the promised networking from this facility appears to be a bit of a pipe dream... at least at this stage. This may well be down to too few early adopters registering on the system and more down to the users than the system itself.

Some of the facilities are 'restricted by administrator'...maybe someone has forgotten to throw the 'switch' and I am sure it will all work wonderfully when this is corrected....

Update -
Having spoken to the Conference Producer, it appears that some of the functionality is available only to users with certain profiles - this was a challenge the CIPD community had last year - so looks like it is just teething problems.

The expectation of the presentations being available 'instantly' was an expectations management difficulty - the wording on the handouts saying one thing but realistically the conference organisers needing time to confirm changes with speakers - so with the reassurance that content will be available in a couple of days all is well in MyEvent land.

User Error
With any new system there are two types of error - errors in software.. and user errors.

When I experienced errors when searching I was searching from the wrong page - so the results I obtained were not what I expected - at the right page it was working fine... DOH!


The future
It looks like the CIPD are continuing to invest in this platform and it will provide members and event attendees with some very useful facilities in the future... Next test HRD 2009

When the teething difficulties have been sorted (common with all new IT systems) and users educated (it is very different from traditional forums) and integrated with the existing CIPD community forums, this will be a tremendous facility for all members - taking membership facilities to a new level.

MyEvent... is it or isn't it....
Well that is not a CIPD decision, this is down to users to make use of the excellent facility made available to event delegates. I would encourage CIPD branches to consider educating members in the use of this technology so that when members attend events they can make the most out of it.