If you’ve never attended AclaraConnect, or if it’s been awhile, we’d like to encourage you to join us when we bring together hundreds of electric, water and gas, professionals April 27-30, 2020 at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville.
Hurry and register now for the best deals
Wondering if it’s worth the time and money? Don’t take our word for it that this will be the best conference you’ll attend this year.
Here are 8 insights from past attendees on what makes AclaraConnect so worthwhile.
1: Meet with experts
“The cool thing about AclaraConnect is getting together with the experts. The people that know exactly what’s going on in our industry. The engineers, the data scientists, the account managers, they’re all in the same place and we can get them all together and start talking about solutions and start answering questions.
So, what I’m expecting [from AclaraConnect], is to solve problems. That’s really the biggest thing. There’s always going to be an issue that we have to get past, a solution that we need find, and that’s what this place [AclaraConnect] is really geared for.”
– Philip Amaya, technical services division manager, Magic Valley Electric Cooperative
2: Learn from peers
“Every time I come here [to AclaraConnect] I learn something new. There are different classes, different things to do, different people to meet. There’s always a new Aclara customer we can talk to and learn how they’re using the system. And everybody has a different perspective — everybody does things differently. But we always learn something and that’s why we come here.”
– Cyndi Streasick, engineering analyst, Great Lakes Energy
3: Cultivate New Ideas
“I think one of the major benefits [of AclaraConnect] is that it can cultivate new ideas that you can incorporate into strategic plans. The EV [electric vehicle] information [discussed this year] I feel is untapped for our city of Bowling Green. The takeaway is that I’m going to be able to apply the knowledge I’ve learned and the stories I’ve heard and utilize them in our city. To make our city more progressive.”
– Max Fiordalisi, Network Administrator, City of Bowling Green
4: Resolve problems
“[Coming to AclaraConnect] is the fastest way to get things done because you have person to person interaction. If you have a problem you’ve been working trying to get solved, going to the conference and working through it is a lot more beneficial than playing tag on the phone, or email chains. It also helps if we have something that we want to learn more about, or if we want to know what’s coming in Aclara.
– Ashley Dimwiddie, staff engineer, Platte-Clay Electric Cooperative
5: Build relationships
“I interact with the people I work with at Aclara as far as support. It’s good to have relationships with them so they can understand me better, and we can be more efficient in solving our problems when we have them.
Because when we have a problem, such as our meters aren’t reading or whatever the issue is, we need to get that thing fixed, and we need to get them fixed fast. It’s worth the investment to come to make sure we get the absolute best support and best resolution to our issues as possible.”
– Andrew Radford, integrations specialist, South River Electric Membership Cooperative
6: Keep up with trends
“Just seeing where the industry’s going, where Aclara’s headed, and what we can do to benefit our members at our cooperative. That’s what we’re here to do – my ultimate goal is to benefit my members, take something back that we can take to them three years, five years down the road. Aclara does a good job of predicting what’s coming.”
– Trevor Moeller, dispatch AMI superintendent, Trinity Valley Electric Cooperative
7: Provide value
“It’s one of those conferences that not every session is a sales session, you don’t feel like you’re being pushed products, you’re being given the opportunity to see products, but you’re not being pushed products. Every year I take home three things. I take home content, I take home context, and I take home contacts. And of those three, probably the most valuable to me over the 19 years [I’ve been attending] is the contacts. The networking that I do every year when I come here.”
– Matt Fehnel, director of information services and technology, HILCO
8: Have fun
“A definite highlight is touring the different cities and all the events that they host. I’ve been to New Orleans, I’ve been on Bourbon Street. I’ve done things that I wouldn’t get to do otherwise. But in addition to that, you can talk about stuff that you can’t talk about in normal life. Like you can’t go out with friends and talk about meters. Well, here you can go out with friends and talk about meters. People know what you’re talking about.”
– Chelse Trollope, accounting and billing analyst, Twin Valley Electric Cooperative
The final word
Now that you’ve heard from customers, we’d like to tell you a little bit about our goals. At AclaraConnect conference 2020, as it is for every conference, we will strive to:
- Ensure you understand our solutions-based approach can achieve the best outcomes for your utility
- Expose you to new ideas and actions on how to improve utility strategies, services, and practices in a complex and fluid market
- Help you develop new partnerships for future collaborations to advance approaches
- Make you aware of technologies that can fill remaining gaps to help your company achieve the next level of success.
We’ve designed AclaraConnect to put the spotlight on our customers and our attendees respond, with 93% telling us that they want to come again.
Hurry and register today to join us.
