This is one post which I have wanted to write for a long-time and it has taken me a week to get it online. Tech.Ed India 2009 was without doubts a rocking, fantabulous success. If anyone attended the event, they would 200% agree to what I am saying. What is my part in this event? – Well I have was gifted enough to manage the content and be track owner for as much as 5 tracks. Each of these tracks were really interesting and I enjoyed being part of it … I also realize what it takes to execute an event like Tech.Ed in India. If I were to put a project plan, I am sure this will run for a minimum of 50+ pages of line items. That is the level of execution perfection we are getting into …
What did you miss?
Microsoft Tech.Ed-India 2009 is the premier technical education and networking event for any technology professional interested in learning, connecting and exploring a broad set of current and soon to release Microsoft technologies, tools, platforms and services. This event also provides attendees hands-on learning, deep product exploration and opportunities to connect with industry and Microsoft experts; one-to-one; through the 3 day event. This year Tech.Ed India 2009 (www.msteched.in) kicks off in Hyderabad from May 13th-15th with Steve Ballmer (CEO, Microsoft Corporation) addressing the attendees; providing them with a breadth taking glimpse of the future as envisioned by the technology giant. If you are developing, deploying, managing, securing and mobilizing Microsoft solutions, TechEd is the conference that will help you solve today's real-world IT challenges and prepare for tomorrow's innovations.
What was unique this time?
Tech.Ed-India 2009 is unique in multiple ways. This is by far the largest technology event in India by Microsoft. It surpassed a number of statistics with close to ~3000 people onsite and the keynote streamed to as much as 100,000 people live on their desktop via (Microsoft Learning Partners, MSN and Virtual TechDays site).
Attendees have the option to choose from 10 tracks per day which leads to a whopping 120+ technology session to choose from. The choices don’t end here; attendees will also have option of working on dedicated machines to master various technologies they will hear experts talk about using on-ground Hands-on-labs arena. To deliver these sessions we have close to 70+ speakers from Microsoft Product teams, Industry speakers, Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professionals, Microsoft Regional Directors, Company CEO’s, Microsoft Redmond Corporate speakers and various Microsoft internal India teams.
Apart from this attendees were introduced to a concept called “Technology Tents” where product teams from IDC were hosted.
Attendees this year also had an option of accelerating their career with the help of “Free Certification” option available through the three days of the event.
Apart from the 100’s of sessions we also had a concept of Un-Conference at Tech.Ed where the MVP’s, RD’s and a number of speakers did sessions around what the audiences voted. We had as many as 30+ sessions on un-conference.
Every day Microsoft wooed their attendees with one full hour of "Demo Extravaganza" - a unique jaw dropping session where technology leader will show some of the next generation technologies in action. If the audiences didn’t clap every 2 mins then the demo was shot down. It was a real challenge for us to get this locked.
What was I doing?
As I wrote before, I was managing as much as 5 tracks personally and also helping in content for many of the other tracks. For me this was like the 5th Tech.Ed that I was attending and I got an opportunity to learn plenty.
The 5 tracks were:
· Management Track
· Database Track – Developer
· Database Track – Administrator
· Business Intelligence
· Office Collaboration and Productivity
Day 1 – I was responsible for the “Management Track” which was an interesting track all by itself. This time when we looked at Tech.Ed we said, people do need skills that are beyond technology. People needed soft-skills and lot negotiation skills apart from just project management. Ranganathan S from SymIndia was just awesome delivering this session. I spent most of my Day 1 sitting on this session and also twittering some of the quotes used. I am just dumping some of them here for your reference.
· Success is nothing but opportunity and planning meeting together...
· Can we have peace during crisis? - So thoughtful ...
· Conquer Mindsets in Planning
· All of us have an unconditional right to make a mistake. But we cannot repeat a mistake - Loved this
· Treat your assumptions seriously. State them explicitly, exhaustively. Word them rightly.
· It is not about a powerful tool, but the use of a simple tool powerfully.
· Productivity is all about how the tools work...
· Culture is a set of repeated behavior across a set of people - ... Create your own project culture.
· If you acknowledge the ego, then the ego doesn’t know what to do -
· Avoid hurting the esteem, it is deeper than ego.
· When people lose an argument they increment a counter.
· Courage without intelligence and intelligence without courage - both are futile
Day 2 and Day 3 were hectic in their own way as I had to manage two tracks in parallel. Though my favorite tracks of SQL Server were in these days, I really enjoyed delivering and managing these tracks. I did a session around “Reducing your Database size using Database Compression Techniques inside SQL Server”. I did my usual slot of post-lunch sessions and trying to keep my legacy going. Lots of MVPs and a jam-packed room were there to my surprise. Thanks to those who attended my session and persuaded me to write more on my blogs and webspace. I do take your feedbacks seriously. Look for more content on my webspace soon.
I talked about “Advanced Data Recovery with SQL Server” and a lot of them liked the session on Day-3. Esp when I had managed to crash the SQL Server, recovery suspect, bad sector, bad backup etc and show some of the really compelling scenarios that SQL Server can enable. Interesting in this session was to see a number of MVPs attend. This is a real DBA sort of session. If you didn’t attend TechEd, you surely missed something.
Finally on Day-3, I also delivered a session around “SSIS-Performance, Manageability, Supportability and Deployment”. This was covering various aspects of OVAL method and how SSIS has vastly improved from a deployment and manageability fronts. Had a decent crowd and had some really interesting questions too. Thanks to those who managed to be in my session and I hope you enjoyed as much as I enjoyed delivering the same.
Is that it?
I can go-on writing about Tech.Ed and a number of informal conversations made me feel that we got the right content, right speakers for you. I am open to listening your valuable feedbacks and do drop a line.
PS: I know a number of them are unhappy that I didn’t give them a slot at Tech.Ed for speaking. I will surely like to write a note on what were some of the criteria I had when I choose certain speakers for my tracks. And these are my insights only.