In the afternoon session of the opening plenary, Jack Dangermond stated the company would do something it had never done before: preview a new release. I'm not sure that was something new, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. The preview included:

- A brief video of Scott Morehouse, director of software development highlighting streamlining and simplification of workflows and sharing on the desktop, successful enterprise implementations on server and rich clients on the Web. He noted that "chasing technology" is not the best way forward, rather he noted looking to help users do their jobs will bring out the best products.

- A team of 9.4 developers showing off (1) the new, fully colored icons in the interface in desktop, dockable widows including a preview of where they'll "sit" when moved, hiding of widows, smooth panning from an enhanced rendering engine, desktop search for data, e-mail tools to send MXDs from ArcGIS (2) new editing tools in desktop including "pick and draw" to create new features, context sensitive "mini-toolbars," the ability to select features in a single location (which may be on top of one another) from a list, show/edit just attributes of interest (3) new publishing tools for publishing from desktop to server that "check" all is well for publishing, and (4) enhancements in server, including quicker rendering. Those last two, if I understood right, will be in a service pack in Q1 next year.

- Demo of ArcGIS Explorer 600 including a new ribbon interface, the availability of different tools based on the current situation, and a 2D/3D visualization option. That last thing will appear in ArcMap, per Jack Dangermond. My sense: if you want to know what ArcGIS might look like: check out ArcGIS Explorer.

After a demo of from a 6th grade graduate of her research into the "dividedness" of her town racially, educationally and in other ways, Dr. Peter Raven and colleague Dr. Trish Consiglio showed off their vision and work at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Dr. Raven shared his passion for biodiversity, sustainability and issued a 45 minute call to action, is his quiet, reserved way. It was a most enjoyable and energizing discussion from someone who has clearly thought about these issues for many years. Consiglio showed the power of weighted regression in her work predicting biodiversity based on limited data. I am pleased to say, I understood the whole process. More on UC blog.