Registration, Welcome Reception, Mappoint Launch Dinner -TechEd Day 0

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MSDN Blogs > frankarr - an aussie microsoft blogger > Registration, Welcome Reception, Mappoint Launch Dinner -TechEd Day 0

Registration, Welcome Reception, Mappoint Launch Dinner -TechEd Day 0

4 Aug 2004 2:51 AM
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So, I'm in my hotel room getting ready for my powernap, and I have to put down some thoughts on Day 0.

My day started at 8am, catching up with MS Staff and partners, such as the team from dotnet solutions who were busy setting up their booth - well Athena was busy setting up the booth, everyone else was supervising.

I then had a quick catchup with Steve Milroy, who is a down from the US to support the Mappoint launch. Steve is an interesting guy - he is an aussie, based in Denver. He is also one of our Regional Directors, and he has been doing some cool work with Mappoint for paying customers. Not just demos, but real production systems. Steve will be demoing during the mappoint session at TechEd and he will be hanging around the mappoint stand in the exhibit hall.

Then it was all a blur until 3pm when the doors officially opened and the attendees came.

The blur continued as I met 100s of people. Some familiar, some not so familiar. It was a blast. I demoed the mappoint stuff, showed some of the features of VS 2005, explained how to signup to empower, had long discussions on the future roadmap for access development and how to get to managed code. As well as meeting lots of folks who are active in the community through user groups or discussion lists, such as the aus-dotnet mailing list. And best of all it was great to see so many folks turn up for the free day - folks like Geoff Appleby who came in, wandered around, collected stuff (beanie included) and I think got a real kick out of the event. I even had people giving me demos!! The guys from QUT (Richard and  Douglas)who were the Australian Imagine Cup winners showed me their kickass application - the TV Prognosticator. It rocked. But I am a TV junkie.

Richard also put forward a theory about me trying to undermine the fortunes of the local Brisbane AFL team. Richard, how did you find out my secret ;)

I then spent some time in the MSDN Connection Lounge, which is a little area set aside for MSDN Connection members. It had heaters, food, drink - I think this will be a popular hangout.

Then to wrap up the evening, I caught up with Steve Lombardi who was hosting a dinner for all the partners involved in getting Australian data into Mappoint AND developing some local applications to showcase the use of this technology. More on this tomorrow.

Anyways, I better get to sleep. We start off at 7.30am, with the keynote at 8.30. We have a special speaker who has already delivered his keynote in NZ, and it was a smash. I'm looking forward to that. Then after the keynote, we will do the Mappoint session which will include all the annoucements, including the special MSDN Offer.

Ok - sleep time

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