Cool Verification

The first annual Birds of a Feather Blogging session was an amazing success as far as I'm concerned.  About 45 people showed up (had to bring in extra chairs), including people such as (just to name a few):

• Peggy Aycinena (EDA Confidential)
• John Blyler (editor, Chip Design Magazine)
• John Cooley (Deepchip)
• Grant Martin (Tensilica)
• Sanjay Srivastava (CEO, Denali)
• Mark Gogolewski (CTO, Denali)
• Brian Bailey (independent consultant)
• Nanette Collins (PR and DAC Publicity Chair)
• Dave Lin (VP Marketing, Denali)
• Janick Bergeron (Synopsys)
• Richard Goering (SCDSource)
• John Cooley (Deepchip)
• John Blyler (Chip Design Magazine)
• Folks from MP associates (conference organizers)
• Other journalists, marketers, and bloggers whose names I didn't capture in my notes 
• The entire Verilab contingent (thanks all!)

Before I say anything about the event itself I wanted to give a big thanks to Sean Murphy, Harry Gries, David Lin, John Ford, and Ron Ploof for help and moral support for getting this BoF organized.  I especially appreciate the (not so) gentle prodding I received from Sean providing me with additional motivation, and also appreciated the work Sean did in inviting many of the blogging, but especially the non-blogging attendees.

Now, a quick summary of the event:

June 12, 2008: Updated the category of the post and fixed a typo.

Sad to say, I'm actually sitting at the DAC Denali party with my laptop writing this. Figured it would be worth a shot to try something different - why wait till late this evening when I can post now with the help of my camera, laptop, and AT&T WAN card! BTW... I should mention in advance that this post reads better to the tune of "Superfreak!"  Super Freaky for sure...

Finally - time to kick back and relax at the Denali party!  I'll be heading over there shortly with my laptop and camera. If I can get an internet connection on my WAN card I may even post some quick images of the event. 

One thing I really should be doing though instead of going to the party is preparing for the blogging Birds of a Feather session tomorrow evening at 6pm in room 201B - I've thrown together a few slides describing quickly the stages of blogging from a newbie's perspective, then revisiting from the perspective of what actually happens once you take the plunge!  I then discuss the benefits I feel blogging brings to the table both personally and for the industry.  Hopefully it will all be finished within about 5 minutes so we have time for the other speakers and some in-depth discussion with attendees.  Anyone else have any thoughts as to what we should cover?  John Busco had some good ideas of topics to discuss (I've shamelessly lifted them and will be proffering some of them as discussion topics tomorrow evening).  Feel free to add additional topics below.

Day one at DAC is half way over.  The general perception I've gotten from many of the vendors is that things seem slow.  Many didn't realize that it is cheap/free to get in the exhibition hall all week and were surprised at the turnout as they thought it was "free Monday."  Turnout was light at my presentation this morning as well, though perhaps "light" isn't the right word for it. I ended up giving my talk about SystemVerilog Interoperability to Janick Bergeron (Synopsys, author of the VMM book), Cliff Cummings (Sunburst Design, SystemVerilog trainer and member of the SV and Verilog standard committees), Allan Crone (Mentor Graphics OVM guru), and Mark Glasser (Mentor Graphics OVM guru).  All I needed was to have someone like Mike Stellfox or Stan Krolikoski from Cadence join us and we could have had our own panel discussion on VMM vs. Cadence OVM vs. Mentor OVM!  To say I was nervous would be a bit of an understatement :-).

I've been buried the last few weeks but finally have a few spare minutes to let everyone know what I'm up to at DAC this year.  Unlike last year where I basically just wandered around taking photos and writing blog posts, this year I'm giving a presentation, running a Birds of a Feather session, and participating in at least one panel (but possibly two). 

Time is progressing and unfortunately I haven't done as much as I'd like to organize the Birds of a Feather session I proposed a couple of months ago.  Why not?  Some of you may have noticed my blog went into a bit of a hiatus during the March and April time frame.  Why?  Well, the reason was related to issues surrounding the relationship between Cool Verification and my employer, Verilab.  What were these issues, you may ask?  My boss, Tommy Kelly (Verilab's CEO) has done a good job of summarizing the ins and outs of Corporate Blogging and the issues he and I faced on his new blog, Darkling Wood.  Topics include:

• possible brand dilution
• IP ownership
• appropriateness of content

The end results of our discussions were that I'm back to blogging again and Tommy himself has taken the blogging plunge!  Perfect timing, as it provides yet another topic of interest for the DAC 2008 Birds of a Feather session on blogging.  Now, as I mentioned I've done a crappy job promoting this, but here is the general idea.  Send me your name letting me know you're going to attend.  Show up somewhere in the neighborhood of rooms 201B and 201C at the Anaheim convention center on Wednesday, June 11 around 6pm.  I'll be there and so will at least 3-4 others who have confirmed with me.  If 10 confirm by the Wednesday afternoon of DAC we'll actually have a room.  If less, we'll go grab a beer and have some ad hoc discussions. 

Who should attend?  Bloggers, people interested in starting to blog, marketing directors looking for info on how best to communicate with bloggers (hint, don't send me a form mail, personalize!), CEOs wondering how to get their employees to start blogging, and anyone else curious about the impact blogging is already starting to have on the EDA industry.

So, send me a note if your planning on attending.  Also, feel free to catch up with me any time at DAC itself - I'll be presenting at the Real Intent booth on Monday, June 9 (more details to come soon) and may also be seen hanging out around the Novas booth with my colleague David Robinson who will be speaking on the topic of Verification Planning Monday through Wednesday.

Last year before DAC I wrote about the possibility of holding a birds-of-a-feather session related to blogging, but wasn't able to drum up much interest.  With more Cool Verification readers than ever this year and after some interesting discussions at DVCon I figured it was worthwhile to throw the idea out there again.  If you're a blogger or interested in the topic of blogging in general and are planning on attending DAC this year, let me know!  Or, if weren't planning on attending DAC but are interested in blogging perhaps this will be the event that makes it worth your while to swing by.  Possible topics for the session could include:

• For everyone, short technical talks about the things we write about on our blogs - verification, DFT, journalism, memory, EDA standards, etc.
• For the non-bloggers in attendance:
  • How to get started blogging
  • Issues involved with starting a corporate blog (especially relevant for CEOs wondering what this whole blogging thing is about and whether it could help your business)
  • Ideas on what your new blog could be about
  • Why Deepchip isn't really a blog ;-)
• For the bloggers:
  • How to track web stats and feed subscriptions
  • Best known methods for which software to use
  • How to deal with requests from PR departments, etc
  • How to cover current events on your blog
  • How to write articles that even the journalists will love
  • Using photography to enhance your blog
  • etc

I'll be working with a few others to contact those of you with blogs that we  know about in the coming weeks, but if you see this and are interested please post a comment or drop me an email at jl at coolverification dot com.