TechEd 7 (Summary)

Well, it's been a little over a week since I got back from TechEd. I was planning to post a summary of my experience several days ago, but I actually caught something resembling the stomach flu on the flight home. That put me out of commission for 4 days, and I've been scrambling to catch up on things ever since. Anyways...

All things considered, TechEd was great this year. I had never attended a pre-conference session in the past, and I'm glad I did this time around. Jeff Prosise is the best, most consistent technical speaker I've experienced. His pre-conference session on ASP.NET AJAX was excellent, as were the 3 other sessions of his I attended during the week. I have to say that Marcus Murray's presentation on security was probably more entertaining and had the audience laughing, applauding, etc. However, the content wasn't nearly as useful and applicable to most IT folks. Several other presenters were also quite good. Others, not so much, but that's the thing about TechEd. There are always a ton of options for what to do during any given time slot. Worst case, you can leave the session and head down to gather swag and talk with representatives from Microsoft and assorted vendors.

Having the attendee party at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure was definitely better than the standard Universal Studios. I like the roller coasters, but I can't hack the simulator rides any more. If the visuals don't 100% match the motion, I get nauseous. Just getting old, I suppose.

Sounds like the conference will return to Orlando in 2008. Then, I heard talk about it possibly being in Houston or Chicago in 2009. Having it local to me in Chicago would be interesting, but not quite as exciting as flying off to another part of the country. So far, I've been to one large Microsoft conference every other year for the last 4 years (PDC 03, TechEd 05, and TechEd 07). Typically, that's long enough in between each for me to forgot just how exhausted you get at them and how uncomfortable the chairs are. :) So, I'll have to see if I feel like going back to Orlando next June. Alternatively, PDC will hopefully be re-scheduled for 2008, and I can head out to L.A. next October. Something to look forward to.

Alright, that's it for TechEd 2007. Thanks for reading.