Something Is Cooking

I’m sure you are all eager to hear a report from the DAC Executive Committee meeting last week in Portland. The important things first: The weather was great and the team cooking event – it’s hard to imagine a better team-building exercise – was a ton of fun. Nobody threw food at me and we had no accidents in the kitchen…well, except for the fact that Ramesh Karri, our security chair, attempted to get me out of the picture by chopping a devilish little red pepper into the salad dressing. He didn’t know that I’m allergic to peppers. Well, now that I’ve blogged about it, if it happens again at an EDA- or DAC-affiliated event, I’ll know it’s no accident!

The meeting was very productive. Everyone arrived well prepared and the discussions stayed focused on the topics at hand. All subcommittees are in place, the call for contributions is live, and we are now in the process of defining all invited content – that includes special sessions, panels, SKY Talks, and the keynotes for the general sessions in the morning. We are also starting our regular conference calls with the content team – that’s all the conference program chairs – to make sure that we stay aligned.

Today I want to dive a little bit more into the exhibitor side of DAC. You all know that DAC is very unique in bringing together researchers from industry and academia, vendors, designers, developers and students, which will be future researchers or designers. The exhibit floor is a central part of DAC and a great melting pot for the different constituencies. That is one of the reasons we are planning to have the SKY talks in the pavilion on the exhibit floor next year. Right now we have 127 exhibitors signed up to be on the show floor.

Rob van Blommestein, our new Industry Liaison Chair (ILC), had his first committee meeting just the day before he came to Portland for the EC meeting. The charter of the ILC is to provide exhibitors with a high-value experience at the conference and also to mentor smaller exhibitors and guide them through the DAC process. Every representative on the ILC regularly contacts vendors to give updates and solicit input for the upcoming show. DAC exhibitors are an important part of the ecosystem and we want to make sure that their voices are heard. New this year is a “how to exhibit” video that gives valuable tips and tricks for smaller and less experienced exhibitors. This video is still being edited. I’ll make sure to blog about the final version, which will probably be posted to the DAC site in November.

I asked Rob to run the idea of a later start by the vendors on his committee. We have our general session with a keynote every morning from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. A later start would allow exhibitor staff to listen to our keynoters and help ensure that the show floor is not deserted first thing in the morning. Vendors could still have meetings before the show floor officially opens; they would just need to escort their guests to the meeting rooms. The ILC seems quite open to the late start idea and has even suggested running exhibits from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and moving the cocktail reception to the show floor. That’s an interesting idea and Rob and I would love to hear your input.

Now, let me introduce you to Rob van Blommestein, our ILC chair for the 52nd DAC.

Rob van Blommestein is the senior director of corporate marketing for S2C, where he leads the corporate positioning, branding and marketing communications efforts. He has more than 15 years of EDA experience working for such companies as Novas Software, SpringSoft, and Jasper Design Automation. Rob is passionate about helping the EDA ecosystem thrive holding positions as both the EDA Consortium Communications Chair and the DAC ILC Chair. As you can see in the picture from our cooking event, he’s not afraid to get up close and personal with a bunch of salmon. He also is an avid golfer and runner. He told me that his favorite golf course would be Pebble Beach – if money were no object. Instead he frequents Pacific Grove Golf Course. Rob also mentioned that his most memorable vacation was a five-day hike to Machu Picchu – something he has in common with our outgoing ILC chair Brett Cline, now at Cadence.