Had a Blast at the Vista and Office Launches!

  • Article

I had a blast speaking at the launch events for Office and Vista.  In Atlanta, I spoke about Connected Systems and showed off the DinnerNow.net scenario.  In Houston and Dallas, I was privileged to deliver the keynote for the developer breakouts, showing "Office and Vista: Better Together for Developers." 

Ron Cundiff has posted a wrap-up of the Dallas launch event with some excellent pointers to resources.   

Some more resources, just in case our talks sparked your interest... ThreeWill is the partner that delivered the Better Together demo in Atlanta, and even put together a scenario that shows a walkthrough of the Accruent demo for those of you who really are trying to describe it to your coworkers.  You should also check out this Channel9 video that shows the Accruent demo (especially those who wanted to see the rest of Ron's demo-that-just-wouldn't-cooperate).

Due to some level of procrastination on my part, I begged for help with the demo portion of the Better Together talk, and received some amazing help.  Mike Benkovich was kind enough to drive the demo for me in Houston, and Ron Cundiff pitched in to drive the demo in Dallas.  Both did an excellent job, in my opinion... thanks, guys, for giving me some time over the weekend to spend with my kids rather than rehearsing demos.  Not to mention that I think people wanted a break from hearing me speak for 40 minutes straight and wanted to see some demos.

One of my favorite parts of going to events like this is the chance to re-connect with members of the community that I have known for awhile.  Getting to see Paul Ballard (of TheServerSide.net fame!) in both Houston and Dallas was a kick... I loved what Paul did with TSS and love to read his blog as well.  I also got to dig a couple of anti-VB jokes at Cory Smith, who incidentally knows more about Media Center than I thought humanly possible.  I also got to meet several other MVPs, such as Jeff Griffin (another MCE expert), and several others who I talked to but only briefly. 

In case you are wondering why I didn't broadcast that I was speaking at these events in advance... I really don't think it's a good idea to publicly announce when I am not going to be at home :)  That, and yet another dose of procrastination on my part.