TechEd 2007, Wrap Up

I thought this year’s TechEd was a great event.  I really enjoyed hanging out at the WSS kiosk and giving the MVP’s and Microsoft folks a hand fielding questions from attendees.  I didn’t attend many sessions (I’ve heard most of the presentations before) but the feedback I heard from people on the floor was that everyone did a great job.  Dustin’s talk was especially popular, probably because he was so worried about his crashed servers that he wasn’t at all nervous about his presentation.

 

A special thanks to all the MVP’s who took me under their wing and treated me like one of the gang.  Numero Uno on that list is the one and only Bob Fox, who made sure I was plugged in to all the events and that I met everyone I needed to know.  Thanks, big guy, I owe you one (several, actually).  A big ‘booyah’ to Adam Buenz, my new drinking buddy, who may be the oddest duck in the group but he’s my kind of people.  To all the rest of the gang, you guys and gals rock, and it was great to meet all the people I’ve know virtually for years.

 

One thing I realized this week is the power of a blog to reach people.  Nearly everyone I met looked at my name tag, scratched their heads, and said "How do I know that name?".  When I told them I was Mr. SharingPoint Blog, they snapped their fingers and recognized me immediately.  The power of the written word.

 

Like any conference, there were a few things that didn’t go quite right.  It took two days for the event staff to realize that people didn’t want to walk three hundred yards and up a flight of stairs to get a bottle of water.  The SharePoint kiosks were positioned in back corner so a lot of people had trouble finding us (c’mon, Microsoft, BI in a better location than SharePoint?).  And having only one night to spotlight the exhibitors was complete rubbish – had I paid the mony they wanted for a booth I would have expected food and drinks in the exhibitor area every night (and not shutting the section down on Thursday afternoon).  Gonna have to talk with the folks in Barcelona about that before we sign on for a booth at TechEd Europe.       

 

But all in all I thought it went pretty well.  We’ll definitely be back next year but, after four days of aching feet from walking the miles of halls and corridors, we might just rent some Segways to tool around on.  Hey, it’s a business expense, right?