As HBO's Game of Thrones' was ending, day one at Appian World 2019 was just beginningat the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel.And with new Forrester research showing that low-code could replace 30% of custom development for enterprise applications, this was the perfect time to kick off the tech industry's premier event on low-code development and intelligent automation.
The conference venue was tricked out with Appian World signage and the registration desk unveiled a new digital check-in process that made badge pick-up easier than ever.
Biggest Appian World Ever
And, as usual, the Event Marketing team was busy holding it down amidst the pre-conference hum and buzz of the more than 1,500 registrants that turned out for this year's event.
Compared to the remarkable 1,200 conferees that turned out for the Miami conference last year, this year's Appian World easily ranks as the biggest, baddest Appian World ever. Speaking of significant digits, the Appian creative crew dropped the mic on previous conferences with a spectacular 200' x 16' LED-powered, high-resolution, video screen on the main stage.
New Partnership Announced
A bevy of more than 20 foreign and U.S. media representatives showed up for the San Diego event. Meanwhile, the Appian media team kicked off a series of announcements with a release on the company's new partnershipwith @Smartronix to deliver #lowcode development to Federal Government and Department of Defense (DoD) agencies requiring the stricter security standards of Impact Level 4 (IL4).It's worth noting that the Smartronix announcement came on the heels of an Appian-sponsored IDGreportwhich revealed:
80% of developers believe that low code can eliminate time spent on repetitive tasks and free up developers to do more high-impact work.
The report also highlighted the fact that 68% of respondents rated low code as a viable tool for developing mission-critical business applications.
Day One Highlight Reel
There was no shortage of sessions to see, as the event kicked into high gear. The trouble, as always, was choosing which ones to attend. Fortunately, the conference's Multi-Session Experience made it that much easier for conferees to personalize the daily agenda. Here's a highlight reel of today's activities:
- Pre-conference training: Intro to Appian was designed to school participants on how to get the most of out the Appian Platform.
- CXO Summit: In this invitation-only C-Suite session, Appian CEO and Founder Matt Calkins and Executive Advisor Jay Cherrie shared pragmatic insights on the business opportunities and challenges facing IT in the age of digital transformation.
- 2019 Global Partner Summit: This exclusive session broke down the latest evolution of the Appian Platform, introduced the Road map to Readiness, and highlighted how the new Appian Guarantee translates to partners.
- Crash Course on Extending Appian with Component Plugins:Geared to those wanting to dust off their programming skills, this session took a deep dive into Appian's new Integration (software development kit) SDK and how to use it to build new applications that make you stand out from the crowd.
- Building a Self-Sufficient Appian Practice: Product Marketing Manager John Cowles and Principal Consultant Dan Ware tag-teamed this session on how to build a successful Appian practice.
- (Hands-on Lab) Build-A-Bot Workshop: Product Strategy Developer Sam Merrill shared his expertise on How to Go From Idea to Chatbot in Minutes with Appian. Participants learned how to use Appian and Microsoft Q&A Maker to create a better customer experience with an FAQ bot.
- Digital Ethics and Privacy: Industry Leader, Financial Services, Guy Mettrick made the case for how Appian can help protect your company and your users in a digital world. The ethical implications of data privacy is a hot issue. This session breaks down how Appian can help you overcome the challenges of data privacy in an automated, integrated and scalable way.
- (Hands-on Lab)Improve your Customer Experience with Intelligent Recommendations:In this pragmatic session,Appian Product Strategy Director Jorge Sanchez led participants through the process of building a product recommendation engine in Appian.
- Delivering Customer Satisfaction with a Contact Center:In this session, Industry Lead Todd Marthaler dropped some serious knowledge on how top organizations transform their contact center to crush their customer satisfaction goals.
The day ended on a high note with a packed house of conferees mixing and mingling at the Welcome Reception in the Sapphire Ballroom where complimentary food and drinks were served.
Stay tuned for our day two recap of lessons learned and noteworthy things we saw at Appian World 2019. We'll be here through the end of conference to bring you these highlights and more each day.
