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TechEd it's not just a conference... it's an adventure

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I've been here at TechEd since Sunday afternoon and it's been a great experience in a number of ways I didn't anticipate.

I've had the opportunity to meet, face to face, with internal MS people and resolve issues in 5 minutes as opposed exchanging emails for days and maybe weeks.

I've met customers and partners from all over the world who've turned out to be, at least for me, in the right place at the right time, completely serendipitously.

One of the most personally interesting things I found out was something about Microsoft and trade shows that turned out to be a long-held but completely inaccurate belief... All the people in the blue shirts are *not* marketing people! They're much more likely to be product developers first, then a few program managers and finally almost none of them are marketing people!! 

Now, don't get me wrong, I truly appreciate marketing people! They work hard and do a great job making sure everyone gets the right information in a consistent way (which is in no way a small task in a company of ~60,000 people scattered around the world!). However, the fact that the developers come to events like TechEd and speak directly with customers is awesome in many, many ways.

Finally, I've been off the trade show circuit for a few years and was reminded of something else I'd forgotten: the social events are sometimes even more important than the official show. The number of people I met in informal situations that subsequently stopped by and talked business in a more in-depth way than they would have otherwise was decidedly greater than zero.

And that's it for me, I've got booth duty for a couple of hours this morning and then I'm off to the airport this afternoon...

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