What to Expect at AI World 2023: Virtual Brew 10/19/2023

 

Have you already registered for or interested in registering for AI World 2023? Here is a sneak peek at what you’ll get to see and expect at this year’s AI World 2023 Conference & Users Group.

Transcript

Introduction

Justin
What we wanted to do today is give you a taste of what to expect at our user conference this year. This is the biggest event we throw — we have a tremendous number of operators and service providers, and we’re really there to help drive best practices, create stakeholder engagement, and make sure you’re able to see, touch, and feel all of our products, and better understand how to use our tools to meet your end goals.

Schedule Overview: Training Day

It’s a four-day conference, Monday through Thursday. The first day is a complete training day — traditionally what we’ve always thrown as an all-day training, broken into two components. In the morning, we have PCS training with two tracks: advanced training, like super-user and admin training, and intermediate training for standard technical users, technicians, and people doing standard customizations. We want to make sure we’re giving you both options to advance your PCS knowledge, ask questions, and have subject matter experts in the room to help everyone get the best use out of the tools.

After lunch, we move into a combined training session for the rest of the afternoon, getting deep into field data collection.

PCS Training Tracks

For the two PCS training sessions: basic and intermediate training covers best practices for using the tool to maximize effectiveness — managing your hierarchy, reports, standard operations, and standard customization options, including user-defined fields and custom UDFs, to help drive more configuration in the tool.

PCS advanced training is aimed at the tremendous number of super users and PCS admins across entire pipeline organizations who attend these trainings — a higher-level, very admin-focused look at advanced workflows, architecture, advanced bridging, integrating with third-party systems, and the knowledge base to help you maximize PCS for your team.

Field Data Collection Training

For the afternoon session, with the release of our next-generation field data collection applications and hardware, we want a comprehensive look at training for annual and periodic inspections — test points, rectifiers, bonds, how to use them, best practices. We’ll go deep into ECDA capabilities — close interval survey, DCVG, analyzing and managing waveforms, utilizing the DVM, integrating with PCS — and go deep into PCS Survey Manager as well, which has been very well received and is being adopted at a pretty expansive rate. We’ll talk about wireless syncing, managing your CI data, and managing annual/periodic surveys in that wireless environment.

These trainings are always well attended, and one of the best things you get out of them is other operators in the room asking questions — a lot of best-practice transfer happens across the industry, not just subject matter experts telling you how things work. If you have any questions about these training sessions, our customer service team, your sales rep, and our marketing team are all resources to help point you in the right direction.

User Group Overview

This is our marquee event, and we’re expecting a large audience this year across all industry types — gas distribution, transmission, everything else. It’s always very hands-on, interactive, with a lot of social activities, so you can interact with us and your colleagues in the industry, and literally see, touch, and play with all of our equipment, tools, and hardware — walking out with a comprehensive, positive view of everything we’re doing to help you in the corrosion control industry.

User Group Tracks

We break down User Group into tracks — last year, some of the feedback was that there was a very poitive vibe, but almost too much to choose from. We always want to give you choices, because one topic may be impactful for you and another may not, so we offer two tracks to help maximize your time: one focused solely on Pipeline Compliance Software (PCS) and our field data collection tools, and one on remote monitoring and field services.

For the PCS software track: analyzing and reporting on ECDA data within Survey Manager and PCS, to manage all of your close interval survey, ACVG, and DCVG data types; maximizing field data collection in PCS to get your atmospheric surveys managed and configured with a seamless workflow; and going deep into maximizing PCS integration with third-party systems — Maximo, SAP, GIS, and other tools people are using in the industry — with best practices for all of it.

On the remote monitoring and field services side: using remote monitors to monitor and maintain AC mitigation, how to install and manage your remote monitors across all the different options now — web-based, local applications, offline installation support at site — making sure you have the tools you need to do your job. We’ll also cover our Triton coupon station, which has become such a popular tool, especially with the expansion of the Mega Rule — how to install it, proper techniques for using permanent reference cells, and how to swap them out. This is just a taste — there’s a lot more content on our website, and the links we’ll provide include a full breakdown of the agenda.

PHMSA Guest Speakers

Something else we’re excited about: we have PHMSA coming to User Group. Since this event is focused on regulatory compliance, we want everyone to be able to see, feel, and hear from PHMSA directly — we’ll have both Bill Lowry and Thomas Finch, who are the community liaisons for PHMSA, and we’re really excited to have them as part of this.

Hardware and Software Roadmap

Since we’re all in this together, we’ll also offer a deep look into our hardware and software roadmaps — all these tools are purpose-built for you as end users, so we want you to see where we’re going with PCS, field data collection, and remote monitors, and give us feedback to keep your confidence in us. That’s really important to us — we want to open the books and let you in under the hood a bit.

Industry Partner Presentations

We also have other key presentations from our industry partners, such as Bass Engineering, covering things like AC interference and mitigation solutions — a very popular, well-attended topic. Just a couple of highlights outside the normal agenda, to show what we’re trying to provide and how we’re bringing value.

Networking and Social Activities

We know that sitting in a room listening to us and our industry partners talk all day can get a little cumbersome, so we always offer plenty of networking and social activity — from mariachi bands to happy hours to casino night — a lot of ways to interact with your industry colleagues and with AI, and just blow off some steam and have fun in between talking about PCS and remote monitoring.

Keynote Speakers

One of the other exciting things we have is our keynote speakers — James Cross and Jim Shower from EnergyWorldNet, the podcast duo behind “Coffee with Jim and James.” They’re coming to User Group to give some leadership-oriented keynote presentations — we always try to focus the keynote side on leadership — and they’ll also be running a podcast Tuesday and Wednesday at AI World, so be ready to be interviewed and pursued by our keynote speakers. Really excited about them being there, and we appreciate their willingness to bring value to AI World.

SarahJustin, if I could pop in here about Jim and James — they’re going to be talking about what we need to do in our industry around filling the pipeline with our people — taking your place at the table, as they say.

Justin
Right — great, thank you very much, Sarah.

Thursday Field Trip to AI Headquarters

User Group always culminates on Thursday with a field trip to AI headquarters in North Austin. We load everyone onto buses and take you out to our headquarters — this is actually a live picture from last year. There’s only so much impact from talking about and showing our tools versus putting them in your hands, showing you how they work on live pipelines, and letting you meet the wider AI family and our team members.

You get a full session at our headquarters for hands-on time with our products — we have a full buried pipeline and infrastructure on-site, so you can put these tools in your hands, ask questions, and figure out how things can work optimally for your operating profile. We’ll have all of our team members available on-site to address anything — offsite meetings, questions and answers, meeting the technical support representatives you work with — all of that is very much front and center.

We’ll also have a live preview of our next-generation test point remote monitors on-site, so you’ll get some hands-on time with things we’re excited to show off as part of our ’24 product release strategy, plus a full showcase of our field equipment — field data collection, remote monitoring, Triton, and test stations — anything you want to see live, we’ll have staged and ready for hands-on time.

Why Attend User Group

If you’re on the fence, or this is the first time you’re thinking about attending, here are a couple of key points. First, this is about best practices, and specifically mitigating the impact of the Part 2, Part 3 Mega Rule expansion — do you know how to use these tools to maintain complete compliance protection with the regulations already on the way? There’s a lot of different product types, and we want to make sure you have all the information, and get that hands-on time.

Second, we’re fully accredited and issue AMPP professional development hours — PDH hours — to anyone attending AI World, for all three days, for anyone who needs extra credentials to keep their AMPP certifications current.

Ultimately, to me, the most important thing you get from AI World isn’t just hands-on experience — it’s the networking and connection with your industry colleagues. It’s one thing for American Innovations to tell you how great our tools are, and we do feel we have some of the best tools in the industry, but learning and hearing from your industry colleagues who are using them is the biggest impact we’ve been able to provide — connecting people, and making sure everyone learns from others, not just from our subject matter experts.

Industry Partners and Exhibitors

We also have a great showing from some key industry partners who’ve helped bring these tools to the forefront for many decades — Trimble, Eos, Mesa, Bass Engineering, EnergyWorldNet, Lake Superior Consulting, Juniper Systems, and BK Corrosion — resellers, service providers, and equipment providers who help you do your jobs. We want to facilitate that networking, so you can see other tools even outside the AI ecosystem.

And if you need your DVM calibrated, we’ll be on-site — hand it to us, and we’ll get it back to you before you leave, so you’re ready for the ’24 survey season.

Registration Options

If you haven’t registered, here’s a breakdown of what to expect. We have a training track and a conference track — the full package runs Monday through Thursday, but if you’re pressed for time, you can sign up just for the training session on Monday, or, if you’re stuck doing admin work Monday but can get out for Tuesday and Wednesday, you can register for just the conference days. There are a lot of ways to get involved.

Closing

For more transparency on our full schedule, we have a QR code you can scan, or you can reach out to our sales or customer service teams, your sales rep, or visit our website, aiworldwide.com, directly — there are links there to the User Group conference for more information.