On Sunday, 3 August 2008, 2000+ delegates invaded the Durban ICC to attend the first keynote to be held outside of Sun City in 8 years. In the few hours preceding this event a lot of behind the scenes work had to be completed to ensure that all these delegates will be provided with the best that Microsoft and it’s various partners have to offer.
On Saturday evening both Ruari Plint and Willy-Peter Shaub and his team arrived in KZN, heading out to the Sandringham Bed & Breakfast which was the base of operations for the MVP Cave during Tech-Ed. It was the first time I had the opportunity to see the Bed & Breakfast and I must admit I was highly impressed with the service and the beauty of the facilities. We all signed in and everyone spend the evening trying out the open bar Ruari established.
Sunday at around 11:30, Michelle and I arrived at the ICC to complete registration and start following up on everyone that was meant to arrive. I also had a chance to see the community lounge and the expo centre, which I will admit had me stressing as they were not remotely close to being completed on time for the opening the next day. However Du Preez and Amory both assured me that everything will come together.
The opening keynote on Sunday was interesting, with Microsoft launching a new conference product name Microsoft Roundtable. The device allows companies to do video conferencing over low bandwidth lines and integrates with Microsoft Communication Server. Eben and his team also demonstrated the power of Microsoft Blend and the ability for designers and developers to work together using Silverlight and Visual Studio 2008. Directly after the Keynote, Dimension Data hosted the opening party at the ICC Expo centre, featuring Prime Circle as the main act for the evening.
Monday morning at 7:00 Ruari and myself arrived to oversee the final stages of the community lounge. This year we had secured an X-Box console, managed by Craig Nicholson, X-Box MVP, and also some plasma screens and a coffee bar. The staff of the ICC also worked hard to provide some of the seating clusters with power, to allow delegates to sit down with some coffee and plug in their notebooks.
IT Intellect also had the final preparations done for the Instructor-Led Labs, and I had a dual role in presenting at the labs as well as being at community lounge. I missed the opportunity of attending sessions, however spend a lot of time at the lounge meeting community members and MVP’s as well as assisting with the highly successful MVP Hunt.
We were very honoured and surprised to have Steve Riley spend a considerable amount of time at the community lounge during the event, making himself visible and available to all the delegates. It was indeed an honour to meet one of the top security experts at Microsoft and to see him actively engage with everyone. Thanks very much Steve!
For me the rest of Tech-Ed was a major blur, as I spent a significant amount of timing networking and engaging with people, including spending some time at the Tech-Ed Academia Day which was held on Tuesday and had 650 local students attend a 6 hour mini Tech-Ed. The MVP braai on Tuesday evening also proved to be an awesome event with most of the MVP’s attending and networking among themselves, and Sandringham providing an awesome selection of food and meat for the braai.
The highlight of Tech-Ed this year has to be the closing keynote with Stephen Attenborough from Virgin Galactic. We were taken through a tour of the first ever commercial space flight and an in-depth discussion of what it entails to send a space shuttle into the galaxy. With timelines of the first commercial flight within the next 18 months to 2 years, the reality of space as the next frontier is truly possible.
Overall I believe Tech-Ed 2008 was a huge success. The community and MVP’s through the community lounge and immense exposure as session and chalk and talk presenters has proven to everyone that we are a force to be reckoned with in the next few years, and I can’t wait to get started on Tech-Ed 2009!
