01 July 2004

TechEd 2004 Day 4- Bye Bye brain Im in my last session of the day, Code Access Security with Juval Lowy. For those of you that have never met or heard Juval let me explain what's he like. He's a quiet, unassuming chap with a brain that could melt the sun. This guy is incredibly smart. Unbelievably smart. There's not many people here for this session but there's a perceptible air about the place of fear. Juval is going to melt our minds, as always.   6:16:26 PM    comment [] TechEd Day 4 - Non smoking table for 6000 please Ever wondered what it takes to feed 6000 hungry geeks? How about 2 aircraft hangars like this one It feels a bit like a cross between a UN aid station in some warzone and a homeless shelter at Christmas (from what I've seen on TV). Basically you walk in and sections are roped off preventing you from going into them. You are then hearded by hundreds of smartly dressed waiting staff from section to section and finally to a table with space. Once you have claimed your seat, you jump up and run to the nearest food station before anyone else gets there and drains it, then schlop gruel of varying colours and textures onto remarkably small plates before dashing back to your table to lay claim to a bread roll and a drink. It's an "interesting" experience.   5:48:42 PM    comment [] TechEd Day 4 : Connecting people There's a small pavilion here called the Drum Cafe. It's basically linked to the venue's ongoing work to provide training and assistance to third world communities to enable them to be self sufficient. At the keynote this year we were all given drums, the symbolism here being that for 1000s of years, the drum was the symbol of connectivity, the most effective way of communicating and connecting communities around the world. Even better though, these are the real deal. Microsoft paid drum makers in Africa to produce 6000 or so of these drums, and so what we all have is a unique, hand made African Tribal drum. That's pretty cool when you think about it. The drum cafe though also runs small tutorial sessions. It's kind of like a Hands On Lab, in the most literal sense. I haven't attended yet (been far to busy) but I'll try to have a go tomorrow. 5:45:29 PM    comment [] TechEd Day 4 : Comfort Anyone who has ever been to a TechEd before knows what a pain it is to find somewhere to use your notebook between sessions to check mail etc.  You either end on with 8 people cramming 14 inch notebooks onto a small round table designed to just about hold two coffee cups, or you find yourself on a bigger table with a mass of plugs and adapters spewing like a volcanic eruption from a tiny, and rapidly melting, multi socket power plug thing. Imagine my joy then when today I stumbled across the eminently civilized MVP lounge. Isn't that nice. To the left there's a bar area with comfy chairs, there are MVP's and MCT's hanging around to talk to (if you speak some form of Nordic dialect - there are strangely few American or English MVP's here this year), and best of all, a true sign of a uniquely civilized oasis here in TechEd is this... Yeah baby! UK plug sockets that the foreigners have to plug adapters into use. About time ;)   5:40:17 PM    comment [] TechEd Day 4 - Panel discussion I'm sitting in a panel discussion about "Busting .NET Development Myths", with some big names I'm keen to hear and see. It's going to be a great session. Well it was. The guy that holds the world record for the worlds largest head just sat down right in front of me. My keyboard actually fell into shadow! You know, I'm really tempted to take a picture of this. His head is MASSIVE.  In fact.... here it is Now, you have to bear in mind that in front of this guy is a large stage, a 40 foot wide screen and 5 people on the panel discussion. Can you see them? If you look really really close you can just about make out the edge of the screen. You can also just about make out the person sitting no more than 2 feet on front of Mr Téte La Grande, that's how big it is!   4:45:32 PM    comment [] TechEd Day 4 - Networking TechEd is a great place to meet new people, and as a consultant it can be a useful forum for making really handy new contacts, personally and professionally, some years. My marketing director at Edenbrook picked up on this, quite rightly, and gave me some handy tips for striking up a conversation about the company that I've been keen to put into play. It's hard to actually get chatting between sessions here though since the place is so damn huge and mazelike, everyone spends most of their time between sessions hurtling around with heavy bags on their backs that make them look like fat hamsters in a maze trying desperately to find cheese smell. So, the original plan was the "Meet and Greet" session on Tuesday night. In years gone by this had taken the format of a bunch of people stood around chatting. Ideal. Meet and Greet time came and John and I followed the crowd to the meeting point which turned out to be the exhibition hall. That in itself would have been ok, but when you add limitless free beer into the mix, loud presentations and music and 6000 people in a small space things become very hard. "Hi there, I'm Peter..." "YEEAAH - BEER!!!!" "I'm Pete...." "WHOOOOOOOO FREE T-SHIRTS" "Hi, I'm from Eden...." "CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG" So, the next plan became the "country drinks" last night. It's billed as quite classy event, a place to meet people ("Ideal", thought I). "Country Drinks". Conjures up images of balmy days at a country club doesn't it. "Hi, there - I see you're from...." "GO ON HOLLAND  - STICK IT TO 'EM..., I'm sorry, what was that" "No problem, I just noticed your badge - you're from...." "OH COME ON REFEREE. Did you see that!!!??!? Jesus H" "Hehe, yeah, nasty. So, what's company XYZ doing ...." "Hey, you got any hash on you?" "Err no." "Fuck. Coke?"   I did have some success this morning though. The morning after the night before, everyone turns up late (If you're a speaker and you get a Thursday 8:30am time slot you know someone somewhere thinks you suck), and mopes around looking for a shady corner to drink their coffee. "Hey, Credit Suisse - I've worked with you guys before!" "Oh wow, yeah, cool" "So, what do you do? Where do you work?" The guy was in a suit. He was well groomed. No-one here is well groomed and in a suit. "I'm a support guy. just started a week ago."       4:43:07 PM    comment []

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