Hola!
This year I’ve been invited to Microsoft’s TechEd Europe event for what is an overdue return to probably the best Microsoft technology update, training, networking, and general shindig in the calendar. Our last visit was too long ago, back in 2009 to Berlin (invited as part of the EBS 2008 RDP or was it the Server 2008 R2 RDP.. I don’t recall but anyway!).
This year TechEd Europe is at the IFEMA Exhibition Centre in Madrid, Spain and I’ll be flying out tomorrow Monday 24th in prep for the event starting properly on Tuesday. Sadly it’s just me from TFC due to colleagues scheduling commitments (holidays and work damn it! 😉 but I’m going to be with our good friend Gordon McKenna founder of Inframon, the system center specialists, and of course the wider partner community – for TechEd 2009 in Berlin there were over 7000 delegates from 104 countries! I doubt it will be lonely in Madrid!
Anyway, learning from the first TechEd visit and as most things the 6 P’s comes into play – proper planning prevents piss-poor performance!
Tech check-list
- Agenda / Content review – this is essential to build your schedule in advance as the popular sessions can get booked out pretty fast
- Chargers, adaptors, camera, batteries, leads, etc.
- Windows 8 Tablet with Live Writer (fortunately recently won a ThinkPad Tablet 2 Win 8 Pro device)
- Full size laptop capable of running Windows Server 2012 (R2 preview I hope 😉 and Hyper-V plus a few SSDs to make O/S swapping easier
- Gigabit switch for extending the hotel room network
- Several USB keys, external HD & lots of ISOs & VHDs (supporting multiple O/S booting with the excellent RMPrepUSB)
- Hootsuite for managing those micro-blog, tweets, FB, LinkedIn and other social updates
- Channel 9 Events App synced with TechEd
- Exam preps, book, and content downloaded
- Out of Office set
As for other packing for the trip, it looks like its going to hot – c.30C most days! J so shorts and running shoes to pound the pavement and hopefully nearby golf club for a few Ks.. and plenty to wear for dinner, drinks, and maybe a dance 😉 – done
I’ve also been advised that Madrid doesn’t really get going until midnight so it’s common to retire for an early evening snooze to then get up at midnight to head out for dinner & party – sounds good! we’ll see how this goes later in the week…
I’ll aim to be posting to the blog daily, tweeting regularly under the office #TEE13 hashtag and probably posting to FaceBook too – please come back and check for updates and leave any comments.
If you’re in Madrid this week and fancy a catch-up coffee, beer (or early morning run 😉 just drop me a mail or tweet @reubencook