We're in the process of scheduling our Australia and New Zealand MSDN Updates for the year. The plan at the moment is to have a major (all day or afternoon/evening) event each quarter, and a presentation at the local user group in the off months. The big question is - what do you want to see at these events (big and small)?
The current (subject to much change) plan looks like this:
Tell us what you want though!
As part of my remit of making TechEd 2007 on the Gold Coast a wildly successful experience for all attendees, I'm putting together a series of personas so we can look at whether a particular activity or feature makes sense. The idea is that you can ask the question "would Dave like/benefit from this", where "Dave" represents one of the people coming to TechEd. Having these common points of reference means that the team can concentrate on the event, rather than arguing about the semantics.
My expectation is that we'll end up having half a dozen or so personas that we use, but I'm just going to start with two.
Dave Dave is a software developer who mainly uses Microsoft tools and technologies. He works at a medium-sized company in a team of around 10. Dave has around 6 years in development, the last 3 in .NET 1.x and is just dipping his toes into the 2.0/3.0 wave. Of course, being in a small team means that Dave has to know about a lot of other things too. He is pretty familiar with SQL Server data structures (although his eyes start to glaze over a bit when the DBA talks about index tuning) and has a passing knowledge of BizTalk. Dave doesn't attend a User Group, and has very little interaction with other developers online (or anywhere else outside his company). Dave's looking to get as much new information as possible from TechEd and has questions about both old and new technology. This is Dave's first TechEd, so he doesn't really know what to expect. Ulrich Ulrich is an über-geek. He is probably an MVP, a TechEd speaker and is certainly an expert in his field. Ulrich doesn't generally go to TechEd sessions (unless he's presenting), preferring instead to hang around on the Expo floor (where's there's power and connectivity) chatting to others. Ulrich gets most of his information online, with blogs and podcasts featuring prominently. He has a blog that many of the delegates already read. Ulrich's at TechEd to make connections, to network and, perhaps, to get some business. Ulrich's been to 4 or more TechEds in Australia, and several more overseas.
Dave is a software developer who mainly uses Microsoft tools and technologies. He works at a medium-sized company in a team of around 10. Dave has around 6 years in development, the last 3 in .NET 1.x and is just dipping his toes into the 2.0/3.0 wave. Of course, being in a small team means that Dave has to know about a lot of other things too. He is pretty familiar with SQL Server data structures (although his eyes start to glaze over a bit when the DBA talks about index tuning) and has a passing knowledge of BizTalk. Dave doesn't attend a User Group, and has very little interaction with other developers online (or anywhere else outside his company). Dave's looking to get as much new information as possible from TechEd and has questions about both old and new technology. This is Dave's first TechEd, so he doesn't really know what to expect.
Ulrich is an über-geek. He is probably an MVP, a TechEd speaker and is certainly an expert in his field. Ulrich doesn't generally go to TechEd sessions (unless he's presenting), preferring instead to hang around on the Expo floor (where's there's power and connectivity) chatting to others. Ulrich gets most of his information online, with blogs and podcasts featuring prominently. He has a blog that many of the delegates already read. Ulrich's at TechEd to make connections, to network and, perhaps, to get some business. Ulrich's been to 4 or more TechEds in Australia, and several more overseas.
Questions
do you identify with Dave or Ulrich (remember, this is only the first two of the six or more personas we will have)?
Have I missed any important characteristics?
I'm sitting down with Tania, the event owner for TechEd Australia and we're puzzling over what should go on a TechEd attendee badge. Last year we had your Name, a choice of 4 "Classifications" (ITPro, Developer, etc) and an option for a one line "Passion", be it technical or otherwise.
What would you like to see this year?
I'm sitting in Joseph Cooney's (excellent) session on WPF at CodeCampOz, and it seems to me that the canonical demo of WPF is an animated button bouncing around a form. Of course, this is something VFP has been able to do for ever:
************************************************** *-- Form: form1 *-- ParentClass: form *-- BaseClass: form *-- Time Stamp: 04/01/07 02:18:00 PM * DEFINE CLASS form1 AS form DoCreate = .T. Caption = "Form1" llanimating = .F. ndirection = 0 nspeed = 0 Name = "Form1" ADD OBJECT command1 AS commandbutton WITH ; Top = 60, ; Left = 108, ; Height = 109, ; Width = 157, ; Caption = "Command1", ; Name = "Command1" ADD OBJECT timer1 AS timer WITH ; Top = 216, ; Left = 336, ; Height = 23, ; Width = 23, ; Interval = 50, ; Name = "Timer1" PROCEDURE llanimating_assign LPARAMETERS vNewVal *To do: Modify this routine for the Assign method THIS.llAnimating = m.vNewVal this.Timer1.Enabled = this.llanimating IF ! this.llAnimating this.ResetButton ELSE this.nDirection = RAND() * 2 * PI() this.nSpeed = INT(RAND() * 10) + 1 this.Command1.BackColor = RAND() * 0xFFFFFF endif ENDPROC PROCEDURE resetbutton * Reset the button to default values this.Command1.Top = INT(this.Height/2 - this.Command1.Height/2) this.Command1.Left = INT(this.Width/2 - this.Command1.Width/2) this.Command1.ResetToDefault("BackColor") ENDPROC PROCEDURE movebutton WITH this.Command1 * move the button by (nSpeed) in the (nDirection) direction .top = .top + (.Parent.nSpeed * COS(.Parent.nDirection)) .Left = .Left + (.Parent.nSpeed * SIN(.Parent.nDirection)) * check to see whether we've hit a wall IF .Left < 0 .Parent.nDirection = 2* PI() - .Parent.nDirection .BackColor = RAND() * 0xFFFFFF ENDIF IF .Top < 0 .Parent.nDirection = PI() - .Parent.nDirection .BackColor = RAND() * 0xFFFFFF ENDIF IF .Left + .Width > .Parent.Width .Parent.nDirection = 2* PI() - .Parent.nDirection .BackColor = RAND() * 0xFFFFFF ENDIF IF .top + .height > .Parent.Height .Parent.nDirection = PI() - .Parent.nDirection .BackColor = RAND() * 0xFFFFFF ENDIF endwith ENDPROC PROCEDURE command1.Click thisform.llAnimating = !thisform.llanimating ENDPROC PROCEDURE timer1.Timer thisform.movebutton() ENDPROC ENDDEFINE * *-- EndDefine: form1 **************************************************
Enjoy!
UPDATE: Oops, this isn't the speakers' bag, it's the delegate's bag!
One of the interesting discussions around TechEd each year is "What should the speaker delegate bag look like?". Well, this year, it'll look something like this:
Sign up now! The early-bird discount expires soon.
Today, Security (from the suite of Virtual Labs)
Step into the Security Virtual Lab for Free
It's simple! No complex setup or installation is required to try out the security features of products and security tools running in the full-featured TechNet Virtual Lab. You get a downloadable manual and a 90-minute block of time for each module. You can sign up for additional 90-minute blocks anytime. As part of the TechNet Virtual Lab, you will have full access to security features and tools through the following modules:
It's up! The session schedules for Tech.Ed Australia and Tech.Ed New Zealand are here:
Australia Sessions
New Zealand Sessions (note that the Kiwis are Sold Out)
Of course, these are still subject to some change, but we're pretty much locked down*.
* Your mileage may vary, contents may be hot, don't run with scissors, speakers, times, abstracts, content may change etc ...
Things have been pretty frantic for the last month or so and they're not getting any less busy at the moment. I've got half a dozen blog posts half finished, but they'll have to wait. I've just set my OOF message as follows:
Thanks for your message. I'm currently heads-down prepping for the Heroes Happen Here tour and so will be slower than usual responding to emails. http://www.microsoft.com/australia/heroes/ Launch Dates Around the Country: Sydney: Thu 28 Feb Melbourne : Tue 4 Mar Adelaide: Thu 13 Mar Perth: Wed 19 Mar Brisbane: Wed 26 Mar Canberra: Wed 2 Apr Darwin: Tue 8 Apr Hobart: Thu 17 Apr
Thanks for your message. I'm currently heads-down prepping for the Heroes Happen Here tour and so will be slower than usual responding to emails.
http://www.microsoft.com/australia/heroes/ Launch Dates Around the Country: Sydney: Thu 28 Feb Melbourne : Tue 4 Mar Adelaide: Thu 13 Mar Perth: Wed 19 Mar Brisbane: Wed 26 Mar Canberra: Wed 2 Apr Darwin: Tue 8 Apr Hobart: Thu 17 Apr
Anyone who knows me will realise that "slower than usual" is saying something ... :)
The full agenda for the first 6 cities is here. I'm delivering two of the Visual Studio 2008 sessions:
Visual Studio 2008 and Windows development and Visual Studio 2008 and the Office Development Platform
See you on the other side.
This just in:
Learn how to leave complex and costly integration behind, and turn IT into a truly strategic asset. Register your place at "Extending the Connected Enterprise" now, and discover how BizTalk Server 2006 R2 allows diverse systems inside and outside businesses to talk to each other – enabling a true Service Oriented Architecture. Find out how BizTalk is relevant to your particular industry, with examples from the financial services, government, health, manufacturing and retail sectors. Event registration link is http://www.microsoft.com/australia/servers/biztalk/event/default.mspx
Learn how to leave complex and costly integration behind, and turn IT into a truly strategic asset. Register your place at "Extending the Connected Enterprise" now, and discover how BizTalk Server 2006 R2 allows diverse systems inside and outside businesses to talk to each other – enabling a true Service Oriented Architecture. Find out how BizTalk is relevant to your particular industry, with examples from the financial services, government, health, manufacturing and retail sectors.
Event registration link is http://www.microsoft.com/australia/servers/biztalk/event/default.mspx
<disclaimer>If it's not obvious from the content, I have a personal interest in this post</disclaimer>
I was going to thinly disguise this post as a follow on from Frank's ASP.NET Site of the {insert time period here}, but I'm just going to boast.
Telstra's Business Women's Awards have just announced the 151 finalists (see, it's an ASP.NET page) for 2007. Check out the first name in the list of NSW finalists.