More LIMS and Laboratory Informatics Fun in Boston

Last night, the Boston LIMS/Laboratory Informatics group had their latest meeting ( http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/36640/6A50095E87BA ).

Normally, we try to get users to speak about their systems, but we sometimes ask software vendors to speak on various topics. Since a number of our regular members are LabWare customers, we felt an overview of their newest features and direction would be appropriate to our audience.

So, last night, John Newtown of LabWare showed us what’s coming up for the LabWare system. Somehow, hearing of the direction of the system sparked a number of other conversations about what’s generally happening in our industry. As you might guess, our discussions reflected the great confusion we all have with the transition between LIMS and ELN, both with the systems available, as well as the way we think those terms should be used.

There were a few attendees that were not LabWare customers, too, and they seemed to benefit just as much from the general discussions. We covered topics such as Citrix (love it or hate it?), ELN (what is it?), LIMS (does it really do EVERYTHING?), and a number of other topics that are currently hot issues for our industry. In fact, I think all the topics I know of as “hot” came up, at some point.

So, LabWare user or not, each attendee seemed fired-up enough to participate in the conversation and almost the entire group went out for appetizers and beverages, afterwards (at LabWare’s expense, and thank you to them for that). In fact, we talked about LIMS, ELN, Citrix, CDS, etc… until we noticed we were the only ones left in the restaurant and the chairs were all up on the tables.

My Point

As usual, my point is that, interesting as on-line discussions are, nothing replaces getting together in-person and hashing out the hot topics of the day. Some people came out of our meeting amazed at the information they got out of the discussions.

Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/