Beginner's Guide to NI Week

[Chris Leyen]

This year will be my second trip to NI Week and I am definitely looking forward to it.

I went to my first NI Week last year and found it to be a little overwelming. I tried to attend as many tech sessions as I could and cram tons of information into the memory bank and naturally I was mentally fried before I knew it.

So I thought I would ask...

What's the best way to experience NI Week?

Is it a good idea to try to take certification exams at NI week?

How do you make decisions on which sessions to attend?

Any random suggestions or comments?

[Val Brown]

This will be my third -- or fourth? -- NI Week and I've enjoyed the prior ones immensely. Yes, choose the events you want to attend and plan to get there early if they are advanced LV topics, given by "name" presenters. Last year there were overflow rooms for some very important and highly useful presentations. A number of complaints were lodged about that and, hopefully, NI has taken the hint and will schedule those presentations in far, far larger rooms.

Personally I wouldn't take the certification exams during NI Week -- except perhaps CLA which may only be given there(???). Why take the exams there and miss out on important information you can't easily get elsewhere? You can always schedule to take exams with your sales engineer (except perhaps CLA, but idk that for sure). Yes, you may pay some more money to do so but why pay for NI Week and miss the presentations?

[David Wisti]

Last year I used Google Calendar to schedule all my events. I had SMS alerts before each session with room numbers in the SMS. This helped me keep on track and spend less time worrying which session to go to next.

[crelf]

Personally I wouldn't take the certification exams during NI Week -- except perhaps CLA which may only be given there(???).

Nope - you can schedule a local CLA, just like all the other exams.

Why take the exams there and miss out on important information you can't easily get elsewhere? You can always schedule to take exams with your sales engineer. Yes, you may pay some more money to do so but why pay for NI Week and miss the presentations?

I couldn't agree more - sure, NI-Week certifications are cheaper, but you can do those at any NI office around the world. Also, if you attend an NI Developer Days sometime through the year, you can usually get your hands on a voucher that will give you $US 200 off any training or certification through the year.

What's the best way to experience NI Week?

Random idea: enjoy the nightlife that Austin has to offer, and take up the opportunity to relax with other like-minded folks on 6th street (especially at the NI-Week LAVA/OpenG BBQ ), but, if you don't work well on little sleep, go back to the hotel relatively early as not to miss the next day's keynote. Some of the keynote items might be a little boring if you don't work in the area that they're adressing, but there's always a lot of really interesting stuff (and they're usually very entertaining too )