7 Esri Community Must-Knows for UC 2024
Esri User Conference (UC) offers both in-person and digital attendance again this year, and will be held July 15-19, 2024 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. The Esri Community team will be present at the conference to connect with attendees. Here are the top seven must-know details about how to find us and what we’ll be up to.
1. Booth Location
You can find the Esri Community booth on the right-hand side of the showcase floor. We’ll be right across from the Startup Zone / Partnering with Esri area. Visit us to learn more about how Esri Community provides numerous free benefits, how to set up or use your Esri Community account, to grab a free button and sticker, or just to say “hi.” Getting to meet our members in person is something we look forward to every year!
Map of the UC 2024 Esri Showcase floor showing Esri Community on the right-hand side.
2. Help More Esri Users Get Connected
Dara Burlo (Community Manager, ArcGIS Ideas) and Simi Basu (Community Operations Manager)
connect with event attendees and answer questions about Esri Community.
If you’re reading this article, there’s every reason to believe you’re a regular user in Esri Community and already familiar with the many ways it supports GIS professionals. There will be others present who don’t yet share that familiarity. Please feel encouraged to send them our way or even escort them over to our booth to initiate an introduction. We’d love to answer their questions and help them get an account set up. The more GIS minds we have in Esri Community, the more collaboration takes place!
3. Share Your Community Story
Our team places emphasis on telling meaningful stories about our members, which is exampled in our Esri Community Member Spotlight series. If you’d like to share how Esri Community is helping you in your work, how it’s connecting you to GIS peers, or is otherwise an element in a story that others might be interested in then we want to hear about it. Feel encouraged to let us know ahead of time with an email to esricommunity@esri.com or just swing by our booth.
Esri Community member Hussam Al Jabri interviewed during UC 2023 for this story.
4. Share Your ArcGIS Ideas
The ArcGIS Ideas Exchange is a great place to share your innovative ideas directly with Esri’s product teams. Customers with a free Esri Community account can propose product updates or new features at any time or vote for Ideas submitted by others.
In 2023, the Esri team received 2,708 Ideas from customers with 16,978 Kudos votes distributed among them. After review, 332 of those Ideas were implemented into product updates. This to point out that we’re serious about working with ArcGIS users to understand how ArcGIS products are being used and what updates will have the greatest impact.
At the Esri Community booth, we’ll be collecting Ideas and helping attendees navigate the Ideas Exchange, so feel encouraged to bring your inspiration our way! And if you hear someone else saying, “it’d be great if …” or “I really wish …” or “what if …” about an Esri product, be an ambassador by helping them find our team to make sure their thoughts are heard.
5. MVP Recognition Wall
Grab a coffee at the Starbucks kiosk by Entrance C in the Grand Lobby and you’ll find yourself beside a large wall dedicated to our amazing Esri Community MVPs. This group of super-users have an outsized impact in Esri Community by contributing in numerous ways, including having collectively supplied 15,600 confirmed solutions (and counting) to others’ questions!
If you’ve ever been helped by an Esri Community MVP, be sure to take a picture of yourself at the wall and tweet (be sure to tag @EsriCommunity_) or post a LinkedIn message of thanks while using #esricommunity.
A digital preview of the MVP Recognition Wall which will be found at the luggage check.
6. NEW: Esri Community UX/UI Testing
Exciting changes are on the way! Esri Community is on track to *update to the next generation of the Khoros Community platform, Aurora, later this year. This process is already underway, and the Esri Community team will be conducting onsite user research testing at the User Conference with pre-selected attendees. Though this session is filled in advance, we anticipate more opportunities to take place down the road. Interested members are encouraged to fill out an interest form at the Esri Community booth or via our form: Esri Community Customer Feedback Testing Interest Form
*Esri Community has been hosted on the Khoros Community platform since late 2020 — updating to Aurora isn’t a migration. Instead, it’s a future-facing refresh of the Community’s systems, navigation, and features based on newer technologies and industry best practices, enabling a better user experience.
7. Esri Customer Benefits Program Passport
The Esri Community booth will be one of five areas to visit in the showcase where you’ll learn more about the benefits of being an Esri customer. To participate, pick up a passport as you enter the Esri Showcase, then visit the five areas listed to earn the corresponding stamp. Participants who complete the passport not only receive personalized recommendations to boost professional—and organizational—success, but they’ll also earn a limited-edition Esri Community badge and a prize!
UC Passport 2024 Badge for Esri Community.
. . . . .
Now equipped with these need-to-know details, we can’t wait to see you at UC 2024! Our team loves meeting with the folks who spend time here on this platform and putting faces to usernames, so please don’t feel you need an excuse to just stop by for a friendly ‘hello’ or swing by to pick up an Esri Community button and sticker.
Don’t forget to tweet about your visit to our booth and tag us @EsriCommunity_ and use #EsriUC2024 during the event!