Another SIIM Annual Meeting is in the books. As usual, it was a great event with tons of great information, discussions and networking.

Some observations…

• There are some very bright folks working in clinical informatics that us imaging informatics folks should be collaborating with. They have cool stuff, we have cool stuff. We need to build bridges and keep each other informed.
• Enterprise Imaging is slowly catching on. We need more details documented, such as exactly what values we should be putting into which attributes/fields for specific image types, but the overall message of the need for clear and consistent metadata along with the images is finally taking hold.
• The vendors I spoke to were happy (happier than usual). It is no secret that SIIM is more about education, learning, networking and relationship building than high volume lead generation. It attracts thought leaders and people tasked with knowing how to get things done. Its members are loyal and have long careers in imaging informatics. Still, vendors that I visited seemed happy with the attendees that came through their booths. One emerging vendor closed a new customer on the exhibit hall floor (a first for them).
• Hackathons are fun and a great way to learn about new technology. The SIIM Hackathon was a ton of work to pull off, but worth every minute. When you give smart creative people effective new tools, they can do amazing things in a short period of time. Seeing the applications and intgrations that the Hackathon participants completed in a few days (hours, in some cases) was great.
• Twitter is not only a fun to interact with friends during the meeting, but also a great way to get key points of learning (in near real-time) for sessions that you could not attend. Twitter and climbing the SIIM Twitter Leaderboard ladder is also at the level of an addiction for some (you know who you are).
• Long Beach is a great little place for a meeting.
• SIIM meetings are very well run. The sessions rarely experience any technical issues. Speakers are well prepared. The agenda is clear and finding the rooms are easy. Sometimes we only notice when things go wrong, but fail to notice when they go right. SIIM staff has this ‘running a meeting’ thing down to a science.

That’s it for now. Already looking forward to SIIM 2015 in Washington D.C.