Thanks to everyone who visited us at the ESRI Business Summit and our sponsor table during the Business Summit Social/Expo earlier this month in San Diego. Attendees learned all about the latest in location analytics and geographic information systems (GIS). Although DMM has been an ESRI data partner for almost ten years, this was our first time at the #ESRI Business Summit and the first time that Directory of Major Malls / ShoppingCenters.com was a sponsor.
I have to admit, before I attended the conference I was ignorant as to the major impact that ESRI’s technology has beyond our narrow focus of retail and shopping centers. There were presentations about transportation, city management, climate, natural resources, education, health and retail site analysis and consumer interaction, just to name a few. In addition to the full-day plenary and the seemingly endless list of eminent speakers (including Penny Pritzker, U.S. Secretary of Commerce; Dr. Bruce Aylward, World Health Organization; will.i.am, singer/songwriter; and entrepreneur, philanthropist and British anthropologist, Jane Goodall) there were a multitude of educational and training sessions, presentations and a gallery that had thousands of sample maps and new technology. There was plenty to learn and a lot to squeeze into a just a few short days.
I was fortunate to attend the Special Interest Group (SIG) for retail and found it to be a friendly crowded room of professionals involved in GIS, business analytics, site selection, IT and marketing. Facilitated by veterans from leading retailers such as Starbucks, Target and Walgreens, the 90 minutes allotted for this session was clearly not enough. There was plenty of open discussion and insightful sharing on such topics as technology platforms, security, data sources, collaboration and mobility.
At our sponsorship table during the reception it was a great opportunity to chat with some ESRI users already experiencing the DMM data through the Business Analyst product and ArcGis in the near future. We also had the chance to discuss with others how they can enhance their site selection and business analytics projects with expanded datasets of the DMM data, including our 285,000 associated tenant listings.
I also personally met some additional enthusiastic team members at ESRI who support and promote the DMM data integration into the ESRI tools and aid us in continually expanding and promoting our partnership (I’d like to give a special shout-out to those who helped with the last-minute banner rescue before the reception). Take a peek at some pics from the plenary event and the Business Summit reception with the breathtaking view on our Facebook page.
– Tama J Shor, Publisher
Directory of Major Malls / ShoppingCenters.com
