A few months back I bumped into Bruce Silver at a vendor conference (as I do, from time to time)—and he slipped me a flyer for an event he was just starting to put together with another market veteran, Nathaniel Palmer. “It’s going to be very cool—no tedious slideware, just lots of demos, research and futures stuff, alpha code—people asking each other difficult questions. You should come along!”

I’m not sure now if those were his exact words, but I think that was pretty much the gist. I liked the sound of the experience he was going for—very much a retreat with an intense focus, and unashamedly more about R&D rather than being yet another generic business format  event—but at that point, there was no firm agenda or program. I said I’d think about it, and then it joined a very long list of other things I might or might not have the opportunity to spend time thinking about properly.

A few days ago, though, I saw a note that highlighted the completion of the program for the bpmNEXT conference—and it looked to be a great lineup. I registered, and I’m genuinely excited about going. As far as I know (Bruce, let me know otherwise!) I don’t have any kind of official role at the event as a speaker, blogger or rapporteur of any kind—I’m going purely to make sure that I have as good a handle as I can on the technology developments that are coming down the track in the BPM and process improvement space. Given the program and speakers I’m not sure how much of what gets shown will really be “alpha” and how much of it will be existing product—but it still looks like being a way to very quickly get a grasp of all the major lines of inquiry and development now playing out in BPM technology and related fields.

If you have an interest in where BPM technology is headed and fancy a couple of days a little off the beaten track in California, I’d encourage you to register too. Maybe I’ll see you there?

bpmNEXT runs March 19-21 in the California State Park of Asilomar, on the tip of the Monterey peninsula. Here’s Bruce’s own commentary on the program.