The HartmanEvent2009 was one of the best one-day conferences I have taken part in. It had everything, from an excellent opening keynote (John Mancini, the President of AIIM), parallel tracks on ECM/Search, XML/DITA, Retail, Enterprise 2.0 and eGovernment, good panel sessions, a wide range of exhibitors and a first-class location in the Karel V Hotel in Utrecht. There were almost twenty speakers, and yet the conference ran absolutely to time, which was very convenient as I had to dash for a train at the end. This also meant that I could not congratulate Eric Hartman on the quality of the conference he had devised and organised, with the help of a very good event team on the day. Although some of the presentations were in Dutch most were in English.

An unusual feature of the event was that each of the sponsors had five minutes of fame doing a short presentation of their product or service in the exhibition area. Some managed to do it well, whereas a few clearly had not practiced the pitch amongst friends before doing it in front of prospective clients and all their competitors. The speakers were well chosen, as all were practising what they were preaching. It was a brave decision of Eric's to have Ben Tiggelaar, a behavioural psychologist, as the closing speaker, talking about the issues of change management, but Ben did put the people-touch into a conference which had a distinct and very useful technology theme.

Overall the conference had a very good buzz, with everyone willing to participate in Q&A sessions, and just to have interesting chats over coffee and orange juice. The venue itself place an important part in this, being a 14th Century monastery which had been imaginatively converted into a 5-star hotel. The event next year will be more user-focused, and based on this year's event even if you are in the UK it would be well worth the short trip to Utrecht to learn from what is clearly a very vibrant Benelux web community.

Martin White