SF Bay Area
More oatmeal for breakfast, then off to the UC Tech keynote. Nine (9!) of the University of California campus CIO's were present, you get one guess at which campus CIO did not come.
Managed to catch the keynote with Joy and Caroline, joined later by Travis (woohoo!). Post-keynote sessions included a solid talk on UC Berkeley's data lake, then it was off to a surprisingly decent lunch provided by the conference. Travis and Carolanne lead a very effective session demonstrating how to train, retain, and effectively use student workers in the afternoon, while the Generative AI one was a bit tougher (in part because generative AI is an inherently tough topic). The late-afternoon sessions being purely virtual were then really weird, as there was no obvious place for people to attend them, especially given it was 4:00pm and many of us were low on battery power; places to charge were frustratingly limited.
The awards celebration accessed via chartered shuttle buses from the hotels, down to the Doubletree by Hilton at the Berkeley Marina. Awards might have been cool but it ended up being windy and cold, so we spent most of the time huddled inside trying to eat the appetizers they provided while balancing our drinks precariously on sofa arms and crowded table tops.