Springtime in Seattle: check out the 2008 HealthVault Solutions Conference!

Way back when I was a Microsoft intern working on a precursor to the Jet database engine, my then-girlfriend-now-wife came out from Florida to visit for a few days. This was a big deal as I was hoping to convince her that Washington would be an "awesome" place to live, despite her knowing exactly nobody within about two thousand miles. So I splurged and we stayed over the weekend at the Bellevue Hyatt. At the time the Bellevue Square Mall was about the only entertainment in town, but it must have worked to some extent because here we are almost twenty years later.

I haven't stayed at the Hyatt since (I don't think... there may have been one time the power was out in the winter but I'm not sure). But in a couple of months I'll be back, and I'm hoping you'll come and join me.

June 9-10 of this year, we're hosting our 2nd annual HealthVault Solutions Conference ... the first one was pre-launch and so had to be done under NDA, but this time it's wide open (Google, are you listening? Jerry? Bueller? Bueller?). You can register online and find out more details here using the code MSHV08. As they say, space is limited so get registered and come on down.

Totally cool --- Dr. Mehmet Oz is going to keynote the conference. Dr. Oz has written a bunch of great books, appears reguarly on the Oprah Winfrey show, does incredibly innovative work at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University, and ... way too much for me to list here. We are honored and excited to have him come and talk about his vision for healthcare.

We're going to run a business and a technical track (details are all here) -- I will be doing an architecture overview on the technical side Tuesday morning (another chance to face my agoraphobia). There will also be plenty of time to talk to both the HealthVault team and other folks that are building great stuff as part of the HealthVault ecosystem, see a bunch of demos, hear more about the Be Well Fund, and lots more.

It is shaping up to be a really great event -- I'm hoping to answer a lot of questions and learn a lot about what our partners need to be successful. I hope you'll come by and say hey.