MEDC: Live or Virtual Events ?

We've recently launched CE 6.0 and XPE Feature Pack 2007 through a Virtual Launch - this means that ALL content keynote, labs, and sessions are available for the live event and also online after launch for anyone world-wide to view or take labs. The Virtual Event appears to be a good way to get content out to you, based on feedback from the event.

We typically run a multi-day, multi-track event in the US (this year MEDC was held in Las Vegas) - this means that attendees need to book a week out of their time, travel to Las Vegas, cover costs of flights, hotels, expenses and of course potentially miss sessions due to interesting content being delivered at the same time slot during the conference.

For international events we reduce the number of days, reduce the amount of content, and send a subset of speakers to present - this means that developers don't get the full US event experience.

Question: Would it make more sense to have MEDC (and other Microsoft events) as a "Virtual Event" - make all sessions available online, make all labs available online, make the keynote available online - potentially have sessions and keynote dubbed (either with voice or subtitles) so the content is suitable for international use - and also have a number of scheduled online chats with the speakers to answer any questions you might have about the content ?

Holding Virtual Events would mean that you can view/review the content from the comfort of your office/home - review the content as often as you like, without needing to travel, you won't get any conflicts in session times, and would still get the chance to ask questions during online chats with the speakers...

What do you think? - is it good to keep doing "live" events, or would you prefer "Virtual" events in the future ?

- Mike

Comments

• Anonymous
  November 08, 2006
  Hi Mike,     What a wonderful idea!!! Yes, this is a good idea. Now, there may be some who prefers to have it face-to-face. I do not oppose them. So, why don't you have the event at Las Vegas (for example) and do the Virtual Event at the same time, live from there as well?     For me, that would save asking my boss for time-off, be away from office for a long period of time, and support (a lot of MONEY :-)) for attending! Personnaly, I do not like to travel that much either. However, the virtual event does not have to be free, I admit, ofcourse.     One thing you need to make sure -- 100% availability all the time!

• Anonymous
  November 08, 2006
  I agree about the costs and inconvenience of live events, but the need to stay out of office and move could also be a good chance to really have some time to update your knowledge. Having session that you can see from office at any time could also mean postponing watching them indefinitely because more important work should be done or someone distracts you in the office. And I also like to travel, so this is not an issue for me... I saw CE 6.0 launch at home (november 1st is an holiday here in Italy) and it was great (even if your CE vest looked blocky in compressed video :)) but I think that following the amount of content that you can access in MEDC is more difficult in online format. Having the sessions available online (together with other video contents like the one on channel 9) is very good for reference and to refresh some concepts. The idea of translation sounds good for people like me that don't speak english as their mother tongue (and sometimes don't undestand it at all :)), but I think that a transcript in english could be enough to understand parts that you din't understand as audio, and the effort needed for translation could be dedicated to provide more contents and more speakers. I've been at MEDC in Nice and having a chance to ask questions immediately after the sessions and also to talk with the speakers afterward was a very nice and useful thing. I do some training here in italy and I think that face-to-face training is still more effective than any virtual communication. At least I can see if somebody in the audience is sleeping :P P.S. having video in downloadable format instead of streaming could be a good way to be able to watch the videos in places where you have nothing to do but no internet access (on train/planes etc.).

• Anonymous
  November 08, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  November 08, 2006
  Making MEDC virtual would be awesome. This would allow all of our developer the ability to participate :) Bob Hanson

• Anonymous
  November 08, 2006
  Mike and team successfully executed a Virtual product launch recently with Windows Embedded CE 6.0. We

• Anonymous
  November 08, 2006
  Better yet...  Tell the boss you're going to Vegas, then go somewhere nicer and watch MEDC online from there...  ;-) Sue P.S. This only works if you don't tell my boss

• Anonymous
  November 09, 2006
  I've been to two MEDCs now and in my opinion a virtual event wouldn't be worth it. The main benefits I get from MEDC are being able to talk to the speakers after their presentations, meeting the Microsoft engineers at the evening thing (can't remember what it's called) and meeting everyone from other companies and finding out what the new buzz is! I've come back both times with key new ideas that we incorporated into our products.

• Anonymous
  November 10, 2006
  Both would be good. One downside of the recent virtual launch, is that we noticed a lack of SQLce in CE 6.0, and no one at Microsoft is talking about what is up. This piece is critical to our product. At least if the launch would have been live, we could have cornered someone and gotten an answer, instead of being virtually ignored.

• Anonymous
  November 13, 2006
  I would NOT recommend doing this again. It was nothing but trouble. Took neerly 4 hours to get the system to let me in. I eventully had to make up a new hotmail account and re-register to get it to work at all. Many oter colleagues and customers had difficulties as well. The content is not easy to get to or find now that the event is past. So I can't refer any one to it with a single link anywere. On a scale of 1-10 I'd rate the experience a 1 and hope it's never done this way again.

• Anonymous
  November 13, 2006
  Definately DO NOT do a purely virtual MEDC. It leaves out one of the most important aspects. Networking with other users and talking to multiple vendors face to face in one place. That's a MAJOR part of any conference event.

• Anonymous
  December 04, 2006
  I follow with great interest all the online events (when I have time to), but for events like MEDC (I came to Vegas last May) is NECESSARY to dedicate time for follow the presentation/session or ask the experts. If you are in Office is IMPOSSIBLE to do this! I consider also the online/electronic version of the session an important REFERENCE for the future need but the IN PERSON EVENTS have an incoparable value for me!