Office Gurus,

Time to dust off the lab coat, it is Tech.Ed time again, and once again Ian and I are organising the Office System track. The Office System is our “umbrella term” that covers Microsoft’s business productivity software and services – Office, SharePoint, Visio, Project, PerformancePoint (and we even bend the rules to include Windows Mobile and Dynamics content sometimes).

Last year we had over 50 unsolicited nominations for sessions in the Office System Track. This year, we are expecting plenty more and have put in place a structured tool to help manage all of that and to help provide better transparency of the process.

How do I submit a nomination?

Go to the Call for Content tool and register with your email address and the RSVP code TechEdANZ. Fill in all the details and hit submit. You can come back to the site at any time to update or review the progress of your submission. This is the tool we will be taking nominations from. If you have contacted your favourite Microsoft employee, MVP or newsgroup great – but the Single Point of Truth for selecting community speakers is this Call for Content Tool.

Guidance

So, with that said, some guidance:

• The focus of the track is the 2007 Office System
• It is over 2 years since the 2007 wave was released, our target audience this year is the mainstream IT Pros/Developers, rather than early adopters and power users.
• This year, due to a smaller (but beach-ier) venue and a big focus on Windows 7 , we have about 12 sessions to play with.
• Office Track doesn't need to be super technical. It is about equipping attendees with tools to solve problems their users face every day.
• Treat these sessions as the "Primer" to the topic, and recommend related Instructor Led Labs, Hands on Labs and other resources to complete the learning.
• Educate attendees not only in the tools, but also in the context. While Tech.Ed is definitely focused on preparing attendees to develop on and administer the software, we’d also like to focus on how “you, the user” can benefit by using the software appropriately. Talking about document management? Perhaps talk about how you can use the Office System to make better technical specifications. Perhaps even go as far as to cover what makes a good technical specification.
• Customer References, real solutions and demonstrable examples are preferred. If you have a couple of different scenarios around the same topic – even better!
• We have already identified the high level session topics. In fact, we have already assigned session owners and started planning. What we are looking for is people to co-present with us, provide insight “from the trenches” and to demonstrate real world examples.
• The high level topics we are interested in are:
  • Business Intelligence
  • LOB integration
  • interpersonal communication
  • personal productivity
  • document management and authoring
  • SharePoint customisation
  • application compatibility
  • change management and adoption
  • SharePoint governance and planning
  • Project Management
  • Visio
• Is the Office System the best place for your nomination? Consider the Architecture, Web, SQL & BI or Developer tracks also.

What is in it for me?

Wow – that sure is a lot of guidance. But, being a speaker at Tech.Ed has its own rewards (in order of appearance):

1. The respect of your peers and

2. There are various awards for best speakers

3. A Tech.Ed speaker badge – which gets you into Tech.Ed (worth up to $1999, not redeemable for cash) and into the coveted speaker room*.

We won’t be paying for travel or accommodation expenses – so be aware that you’ll need to pay (and stay) your own way to the Gold Coast.

I really look forward to reading your nominations and seeing you at Tech.Ed this year. There is truly no other event like it in Australia and it is the best “week of geek” you’ll find.

* Okay, it isn’t that coveted.It is usually just a bunch of smelly people swearing at their virtual machines.