Microsoft Convergence 2011 Atlanta - Day 1

After a breakfast at the hotel of one of my all time favourites: Eggs Benedict, I met up with Mariano and we walked over to the Georgia World Congress Center to complete the conference registration formalities.  We then went to the speakers room and signed in with them and handed over the final versions of our slides, documents and example code.

I had a chance to walk past the viewing window to the Expo Hall and had a look at the exhibitors preparing their booths.  It looks a bit empty now, but will be very full over the next few days.  There are over 9,000 attendees coming to Convergence this year.

The first session of the GPUG (GP User Group) Day One pre-conference event was a Welcoming General Session hosted by Kim Peterson. We had a great talk from Andy Hafer (the founder of GPUG), who gave us his tips for getting the most out of the Convergence Conference.

After Andy's talk we had a "Town Hall" session with some of the Microsoft Executives from Fargo.  We were graced with the presence of Jeff Trosen, Chris Lerum, Chad Sogge, and Pam Misialek.  As you can tell from the photo below, some of the questions asked where trickier than others, but it is always great for Customers and Partners to be able to discuss issues directly with the people who can make a difference.

After the general session there were 22 break out concurrent sessions in two timeslots.  It makes it a little hard to when you have to choose only 2 from 22 (and avoid selecting ones in the same timeslot), however all the session materials will be available from the GPUG website. 

Mariano and I attended the session UBGP21 Where do the Experts Turn for Answers? by Zubin Gidwani.  This session was a great summary of how to find information and resources from Microsoft sites, the GP community and the Internet in general.

We then went to the room for our UBGP15 Ask the Experts: Microsoft Dynamics GP Development Tools session. Mark Rockwell was just packing up from his session which highlighted 100 ISV products in 50 minutes.  As you can see from the photo, the theme for the Rockton Software team this years is Vikings.

I think Mark is returning to his barbaric roots.

We then presented our interactive "Ask the Experts" on development and customization tools. After a brief introduction, we opened the floor to the attendees to ask any question that wanted. We ended up with enough questions to fill the time available with a very informative and dynamic session. 

 
Some of the questions made Mariano think very hard.

Thank you to all the attendees of the session, please make sure you provide feedback on your evaluations.  Also feel free to post comments here.

Coming up next... the Convergence Reception event. 

David