Attending Microsoft Tech Ed 2007!

First impression....WOW! I've been to many conferences but none on this scale. The conference this year is being held at the Orange Convention Center in Orlando. I ended up getting a room at the Hilton Garden Inn in Orlando:Sea World which is right down the street. This is the second H.I.G. I've stayed at thus far and I have to say, when traveling for business, I highly recommend it. Today was the first day of the conference. Registration was fairly straight forward and was pretty fast. Upon registering, you get a really cool Tech Ed backpack which rocks because it has to configurations (Backpack and Carry Bag: Handle at the top) as well as a small pocket in the front for an MP3 player complete with earphone port. On the first floor is where all the main action is. All Microsoft booths on one side and all the Vendors on the other. In the middle are a gazillion stations for internet access. One section has Cat5 connections to hookup your laptop for connectivity and another has workstations preconfigured with Office apps and internet connectivity as well as a printer. ROCK ON! They give you a lanyard with your identification (the usual) but on the back side is a mini pamphlet with the entire show schedule as well as other useful info such as the routes for shuttles going to/from the hotels.


The vendors had the usual set up. Schwag in exchange for your contact info to have sales people harass you. Something different was some of the cool stuff required you to basically hang out/walk around and look where the lines were forming or the vendors made you jump through hoops. AMD had you basically go on an information treasure hunt of their product and fill out a form to get the shirt. Blackberry had you go visit their partner booths to validate a card. Man....whatever happened to the good ole days of just handing out stuff. It was pretty funny because I was walking by the APS booth and they supposedly had USB sticks to give out in exchange for a filled out card. Some rep announced they didn't have the sticks until tomorrow and as soon as he said that, the crowd parted like the Red Sea. Another funny site was as I was walking by the MS area early in the morning before the sessions were about to begin, it was blocked off by dividers. There was a giant box in the middle of the section piled high with t-shirts. As soon as the floor crew came by to pick up the dividers, no less than 10 seconds had passed and there was a rush of attendees that started to horde the shirts. A couple of seconds later, an MS rep saw the crowd and immediately ran over and told people that the section is not open yet. Then she had one of the floor crew people guard it until the "officialy" open. Amazing site to see. Techie Schwag Frenzy

More on tomorrows blog...