A huge Thank You to everyone who attended Helm Conference 2018!
With more than 100 attendees from all over the world—including companies representing harbor docking, inland barging, passenger vessels, and fishing—it was definitely our biggest conference ever. Our goal was to show our attendees who we are. We wanted to introduce you to our whole team, get you to experience our culture, and show you the future of our product. And we did all those things. This year’s conference was not only our biggest, it was also our best rated.
During the product sessions, our Product Management team discussed the future of Helm CONNECT, highlighting exciting some partnerships and integrations we have on the horizon. The first of these partnerships are with ShipTracks, an AIS-mapping company, and OptiPort, a company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning algorithms to dynamically optimize harbor dispatch. Helm Analytics was also on the forefront, as we showcased the maintenance, compliance, personnel, and jobs dashboards we’re building to create a single place to view all crucial business elements.
In addition to our product sessions, keynote speaker Gregg Cochlan from The Pacific Institute provided two insightful sessions to help us better understand how the mind works, increase personal performance, and improve organizational culture. For more than 40 years, The Pacific Institute has been teaching cognitive psychology and translating those principles into leadership skills and organizational development for Fortune 500 companies and professional sports teams around the world, and many of you commented on the value you took from Gregg’s sessions.
Of course, one of the clear highlights of the conference was Helm Labs! During the conference, our developers took part in a 48-hour development marathon, putting their regular work on hold to focus on some awesome new projects suggested by our Helm CONNECT users. From integrations to small improvements, any and all ideas were considered. On the last day of the conference, we hosted a BBQ at our office (wasn’t the sunset over the harbor spectacular?!) and the teams presented their projects. Attendees voted to see which ones should make it into Helm CONNECT, and now some of these groundbreaking projects are being prioritized for future releases.
Click here to check out the Helm Conference 2018 photo album.
Don’t worry if you weren’t able to attend this year; we’ll be publishing the content from all the sessions on our website soon. Planning for next year’s conference is already underway, and we’ll soon be announcing the dates and location. We can’t wait to see you all there!
