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Yesterday was so busy, I failed to get the time to put up a blog entry. Anyway, here's what happened.

I spent some time in the Cabana area networking with some attendees. It's interesting how frequently the people at TechEd express such delight about the blogging Microsoft employees are doing. People regularly tell me how much more open they feel Microsoft is, more responsive and helpful. Blogs are a big part of that.

My session went well, and the attendees made it fun. Success has a lot to do with the people in the room, not just the presenter. This group was exceptional. I presented a cohesive walkthrough of the 6 part series I blogged on about Outlook, .NET, and WordML for a reporting solution. Here are the links to the previous entries:

My article that will consolidate it all should go live today or Tuesday on the Office Developer Center.

Then, I presented a walkthrough of a great idea from Stephen Toub of MSDN magazine. We published an article of his early this week on the Office Developer Center (I timed it to coincide with the TechEd presentation). Both demos received ovations. That's a good thing. The fact is, it is easy to do cool demos when the fundamental product is great. This is particularly true in the case of Office 2003.

After my session, I chatted it up with some old friends from General Mills (Brent, Paul, Alex et al, it was great to see you! Bring Elliot next time!), and other clients I have served in my previous life as a consultant. One in particular, Suparna Vadlamani, is exceptionally bright. I am hopefully going to be able to collaborate with her on an article or two in the future.

If TechEd is about technology, it's equally about FOOD. Most people gain a lot of weight there. Sure, there were more "diet-friendly" snacks this year (I loved the dried banana chips!), but there were still plenty of Dove bars, chocolate bars and other things to give Richard Simmons a new market for his videos directed soley at TechEd survivors. Let's work out to "Sweatin' with the techies".

Here's the main dining hall ready for lunch:

My flight home was uneventful, and no one talked to me the whole way. I am grateful for that. I was exhausted.

 I again listened to the Metallica album "Metallica" on my Bose sound-cancellation headphones yesterday, and it is always an amazing experience. Their engineering work is simply superb, and the overall album is a masterpiece. However, I will never retreat from my contention that they need to lighten up quite a bit. Life is not just about pain, suffering, alienation etc., and I have seen my own share of those. As one American POW who spent several years in the Hanoi Hilton said in the PBS Frontline special, "Return With Honor", "Any day where there is a door knob on the inside of the door is a good day."

Rock on.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2004
    I'm just a sysadmin and blindly fumble through vb scripts to do sysadmin tasks. I attended this presentation and now I need to find an excuse to be an Office developer for a while. thanks for the work!

  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2004
    This is good news! I used to write management scripts myself. Do you remember Kix scripts? Being a developer for the Microsoft Office System technologies is a heckuva lot more fun. check out the Office Developer Center (http://msdn.microsoft.com/office) for more information on getting involved.
  • Anonymous
    July 26, 2004
    The comment has been removed