SharePoint Connections 2007 Day Two
It’s day two and the wireless access is worse than ever. Almost impossible to connect now. Thank goodness for my AT&T 3G card or I would be completely unwired.
Here’s a question for you: if you paid thousands of dollars to have a booth at a conference such as this would you be peeved if the organizers prevented attendees from visiting your booth for half the day? Answer: you damn betcha. But that’s just what the geniuses at DevConnections have done. The exhibit hall is closed while sessions are going on yet there are dozens of people wandering the halls with nowhere to go. Shouldn’t I have the opportunity to market to these people if I paid for the privelege? Apparently not. Now that’s just plain dumb.
I spent most of the day doing what I like to do most at these events, which is talking to customers at the SharePoint kiosk. Unlike TechEd, which was mostly "What is SharePoint and why should I care", there are a great deal more in-depth questions being asked here. Whether that’s because there is a heavy dev crowd here or word is getting around I don’t know but it’s a welcome change.
After the conference we did some jack-jawing at the Coral Reef Lounge with AC and the rest of the MVP’s then it was on to the New York New York for a dinner sponsored by the SharePoint product team. Good food and good conversation. My apologies to Ben Curry for taking him to task for being such a high-tech redneck; he was a good sport and took the ribbing in stride. I’m just glad I’m not the only gun-toting hillbilly in the group! A special thanks to Lawrence Liu (who forbade us to talk about SharePoint during the dinner – as if!) and April Spence for organizing the drinks and grub.
Tomorrow has some good sessions from Dustin Miller, AC and Todd Baginiski. Don’t know if I’ll make it very far from the stand but I’d like to try and sit in on at least one of them.
P.S. – If you’re at the conference be sure to drop by the Office SharePoint Server kiosk and say howdy. I’ll be around all day – just look for the hat!
It was great to meet you! I had a blast at dinner and can’t wait to go hunting in Texas some time 🙂
Eric, it was great talking to you about the ability to write workflows in SPD 2007. You were the first person I’ve talked to who could give me a good answer. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make it work. You may be hearing from me asking for advice. Hope you were able to get to Dustin and Todd’s demos… they were great. Thanks again.