The day dawned bright and sunny this morning in Palm Springs. D Day is finally upon us. Let the DIALOG begin!

Talking of dialog, quite a few DIALOG attendees have their own blogs and most of them will be blogging directly from the conference over the next few days. The ones I’ve heard about so far are Steve Nunez, James Taylor, Anthony Baer, and Tony Garritano. If you’re planning to blog the DIALOG event and you’re not listed here, we want to know! Please add a comment here with a link to your blog.

If you’re attending DIALOG, and don’t have your own laptop with you, we have two machines set up just outside the Solutions Hall opposite the registration desk for you to access our event blog and share your feedback and comments. We want to encourage everyone to be part of the conversation!

Well, it was a bit of a bumpy ride, but my flight just made it out of San Francisco before the worst of the weather moved in. By a stroke of luck I ended up sitting just behind Monika Raj, ILOG’s wonderful PR Manager for the US, who was able to quickly fill me in on the many press and analyst briefings that she has scheduled throughout the conference.

We got to Palm Springs with about an hour and a half delay, though several other ILOGers weren’t quite so lucky. Some flights had been canceled, and some chose to fly to other airports in the region and then drive to Palm Springs from there.

The weather is clear and dry here in Palm Springs at the moment, so let’s hope it stays that way for the golf tomorrow. Most people will be arriving tomorrow morning, so hopefully the weather in the Bay Area and on the East Coast will have calmed down by then and everyone will be able to make it here without too many problems.

Monika and I, together with ILOGers Julie Firsty and Kevin Turner (who we bumped into at baggage claim) were just able to make it to the hotel in time to drop off our bags and join Cheryl Wilson and other members of the DIALOG team for an onsite inspection and walkthrough. Everyone will be pitching in tomorrow morning to ensure that everything is ready for 2pm when conference registration opens.

I’ll be helping to set up a couple of walk-up computers in the registration area for attendees to access and contribute to the event blog, so please do consider stopping by one of those self-service machines (or power up your own laptop) and join the conversation!

Look out for Daryl and myself once the conference gets underway and feel free to apporach us if you have any information, announcements, or requests that you would like to share via the blog.

Right, now I’m off to bed. I need my beauty sleep before the big day.