CRIP Symposium at the Centre International de Deauville

Inter­view with Sylvie Roche, Man­aging Dir­ect­or of CRIP — the circle of con­fid­ence for IT decision-makers — at the CRIP Sym­posi­um held from June 7 to 9 at the Centre Inter­na­tion­al de Deau­ville / CID — Pal­ais des Congrès.

Could you define CRIP?

CRiP (Club des Respons­ables Infra­struc­tures, Tech­no­lo­gies et Pro­duc­tion IT) is an asso­ci­ation of IT decision-makers. It brings togeth­er a com­munity of 13,000 mem­bers, and aims to improve the per­form­ance of its mem­bers through a num­ber of ser­vices, includ­ing two main ones: exper­i­ence shar­ing and networking.

Our asso­ci­ation, based in Par­is, organ­izes numer­ous events each year in dif­fer­ent regions of France. Once a year, we organ­ize an event aimed exclus­ively at our IT decision-makers. It takes place in Deau­ville and is called the “CRIP Sym­posi­um”, bring­ing togeth­er 350 people this year.

What is a symposium?

A sym­posi­um is an event dur­ing which the IT decision-maker com­munity gath­ers for three days to share ideas around a com­mon theme.
This year’s theme was “Has tech­no­logy lived up to its promise?

This theme was chosen in response to the buzz words that appear every year, such as block­chain, metavers and Chat­G­PT. Our com­munity is imple­ment­ing all these tech­no­lo­gies, so the aim is to study wheth­er or not they are liv­ing up to their promises.

How did the event unfold?

The event began with a golf com­pet­i­tion on Wed­nes­day after­noon, in which 70 mem­bers were able to take part. Deau­ville is a golf­ing town, so it was essen­tial to show­case the sport ahead of the sym­posi­um. The even­ing con­tin­ued with a launch din­ner in the Ambas­sad­ors’ Lounge at the Casino Bar­rière de Deauville.

The sym­posi­um began on Thursday morn­ing in the CID aud­it­or­i­um, with a plen­ary ses­sion inter­spersed with breaks. On Thursday even­ing, all par­ti­cipants gathered for din­ner at the Golf Bar­rière hotel.

On the second day, work­shops were held in the com­mit­tee rooms and par­ti­cipants were able to attend plen­ary ses­sions in the Michel d’Or­nano auditorium.

What was the aim of this event?

The aim was to work on the chosen theme with speak­ers and experts who came to share their points of view through con­fer­ences in the Michel d’Or­nano aud­it­or­i­um and work­shops in the com­mit­tee rooms of the Pal­ais des Congrès.

Who are the participants and where do they come from?

The par­ti­cipants are mainly from SBF120 IT depart­ments, ETIs and 30% from the pub­lic sec­tor, such as ministries.

From a geo­graph­ic­al point of view, the major­ity of our com­munity is Parisi­an, as IT depart­ments are gen­er­ally based in Par­is. We also have cus­tom­ers from the South of France, from cit­ies like Nice and Mar­seille. Some come from the North or East, from cit­ies such as Stras­bourg or Lille. So our com­munity is drawn from all over France!

Why hold a symposium in Deauville?

I reg­u­larly ask my mem­bers where they’d like to hold the sym­posi­um, but they’re very fond of Deau­ville. First of all, it’s eas­ily access­ible, by train or car, both for Parisi­ans and for the rest of the com­munity who come from all over France. We set up a shuttle ser­vice from Neuilly sur Seine to Deau­ville. Par­ti­cipants come by train or plane and then take the shuttles. This allows us to make a com­mit­ment to the environment.

Mem­bers par­tic­u­larly appre­ci­ate the sea­side resort because it’s so easy to relax here. Deau­ville is like a breath of fresh air in their stress­ful lives. What’s more, the fact that it’s all with­in walk­ing dis­tance is the real attrac­tion of the des­tin­a­tion. As for the Centre Inter­na­tion­al de Deau­ville, it’s just a stone­’s throw from the sea and oppos­ite their accom­mod­a­tion: the Le Nor­mandy Bar­rière hotel.

Why choose the CID Deauville convention center for a symposium?

The infra­struc­ture is exactly what we need. The aud­it­or­i­um can be adap­ted to the num­ber of par­ti­cipants, thanks to the play of lights and the clos­ing of the upper spaces.
Anoth­er advant­age is that all breaks can take place with­in the con­ven­tion cen­ter. The beau­ti­ful Glass-roofed recep­tion area makes it just as easy to organ­ize one-to-one meet­ings in the small lounges as it is to switch our out­door lunches indoors in case of bad weather.

Last but not least, the C.I.D. events teams are an excel­lent relay and a great sup­port for the organ­iz­a­tion of the event. They accom­pany us and advise us on stage man­age­ment and sceno­graphy, while fol­low­ing our guidelines, espe­cially as we are not spe­cial­ized in events.

Field teams :
Emmanuelle Chenel
Soph­ie Breard
Olivia Trouvain
Jean-Fran­cois Vincent