Be Connected, 2009 Webinar

Since the format’s change of the Bentley’s annual conference, arguing that the global crisis could affect their users’ travel to U.S. in May, it has been launched the proposal for online seminars to reach not only those who would attend the event but for those who do not have the facility to spend $ 2,000 that could cost you a trip of this nature.

“With more than 150 of the best practices and product seminars, online seminar series Be Connected is the best way for both professionals and business leaders in infrastructure to keep up on the latest trends in technology and practices without loss of time and expense of traveling to a conference, ”

said Bentley’s Chief Marketing Officer Ed Mueller.

“It is content with a ‘professional conference quality’, brought to your desktop for free”

The novelty

This is the case, that more than 150 seminars can be enjoyed from the comfort of the desktop are scheduled from June to November and with a regular Internet connection.

At the beginning it doesn’t drawn much my attention, because I was excited about the trip that I usually meet, but now that has been shown the functionality I am thinking if this succeeds it might be that Bentley decides to permanently change the periodicity of the Conference or at least focus on the Be Inspired that only lasts a couple of days. This scared me more.

But see that Bentley has offered to give back accredited certificates by Bentley Institute to the ones who take seminars. Aside, it is possible to be left online available to be seen as many times as necessary, giving a more significant value to the 25 minutes of a live Conference.

Types of seminars

There are three types:

About Good Practice

Presented by worldwide infrastructure professionals, these sessions provide a project’s perspective on best practices for design, construction and operation of specific types of infrastructure projects, including the series of seminars on the following topics: bridges, cadastre and development field, communications, business electricity and gas, mining and metals, oil and gas, rail and transit sector roads, water and waste water.

About Bentley products

Presented by Bentley’s top executive’s product and designed for both current and future users, these sessions focused on technology shows the latest features and capabilities of the portfolio V8i software for sustainable infrastructure.

And then?

It is not a bad design that had been given to Be Connected’s interface, although javascript’s abuse has gone to the extreme to not test it so well in different browsers and it was necessary for me to use Safari in view of so much functionality. I prefer Chrome but Safari never fails… even using IE cost me to operate the “register” button which reminded me how advanced is the night and that the disease only cured by Melquiades in Macondo could be bothering my browser… or my neurons.

Make work sort by column header and watch window popup is more annoying. While in United States is common having very stable connections, features cannot be designed exclusively to this type of users. Many still prefer 512 and for us it is enough, the majority has also solved basic issues of navigation with less money and with better messages to not lose patience.

We are sorry, some error has occurred!

The error has been logged and will be reviewed by our technical staff. In the meantime try the request again or Write/Call us for further assistance options.

Finally, the functionality leaves much to be desired, even after registering a cloud of emails came to my inbox and a couple of days later an unforgivable apology, but once understood the webmaster’s stubbornness, the wealth of information compensates this situation.

The search can be done by “all”, “live” and even “on demand.” Then you can sort the list by the header, either by date, organization or topic.

Here is an example of the seminars in the geospatial area:

Seminar	Organization	Date
Spatial isn’t Special	Microsoft Corporation	June 24
Government Outlook	Bentley	July 1,
City of Prague Urban Base Map	T-Mappy	July 15,
Ensuring Precision and Accuracy in Mapping Registration and Cadastral Implementations	Bentley	July 29,
Preparation of Master Plans Using Scientific Base Maps	Gkk Town Planning and Architectural C	Sept 9,
3D City GIS	Bentley	September
Maintenance of Public Space, Geospatial Information for Asset Management	Oranjewoud BV	October
Real Estate and GIS: Show Me the Money!	Dutch Rail Real Estate (NS Poort)	October
Integrating Geospatial Information in an Enterprise Environment	Bentley	October
Using ESRI GIS Data in an Engineering Environment	Port of Long Beach	November
Leveraging ESRI Information in Bentley Engineering Workflows	Bentley	November
Utilizing Modeling Technology to More Efficiently Create and Change Design	KASL Consulting Engineers	November
Applying GIS Data to Radar Video Maps	Federal Aviation Administration	November

Here you can see the rest of seminars.

Indeed, as you have seen, all are in English (like conferences). We hope our friends in Amsterdam or Mexico will lead this kind of services to Spanish speakers, now that they have announced Power Civil for Spain and Power Civil for Latin America.

By now I have registered in the first ones for a conclusion because the webmaster’s bad taste of combining aspx with javascript so terribly doesn’t remove me even I already took an adrenaline.

Ah… the adrenaline: delicious!