Oh dear, Tech*Ed keynote #TEE09

As I type people are leaving the keynote in significant numbers. It seems rude, but I can understand.

Keynotes at Tech*Ed have declined in power as the suits take over. Back in the old days <bg> keynotes were fun, silly, energising, and had a lot of WOW. And the smartest thing worn was a relatively fresh golf shirt.

This feels like the conclusion of the past few years. The Microsoft speakers are in suits and ties for heaven's sake; and the whole thing has a serious business to business tone, rather than techie to techie.

It might change in the next 50 minutes but I'm not hopeful. When you think of the opportunity:
Exchange 2010
Office 2010
Sharepoint 2010
Sql Server 2008 R2
Windows 7
Windows Server 2008 R2
Visual Studio 2010
Powershell 2
Project 2010
Forefront TMG 2010
That could have filled many hours of WOW demos.

Is it because Tech*Ed is in the early winter instead of the summer?

Ah, at last!!!!! Julia White is on after 45 minutes doing an exchange 2010 demo, but unfortunately a lot it's stuff that's been in the public domain for a while.
The biggest cheer was for the OWA demo using Firefox :-)

Now we've got 2008 r2 tools and eco being evangelised.

Overall I feel this keynote has been written by Redmond to sell to suits and to people watching on the web, not by techies to wow techies... Honestly - how many techies get excited by the bottom line?

#TEE09 Tech*Ed and feeling guilty

Over the years I've had several reasons to feel guilty whilst attending Tech*Ed. For many years the conference co-incided with both my wife's birthday and our wedding anniversary - I missed 7 or 8 of those. Although on others she came to Amsterdam or Barcelona to celebrate there.

Many years ago I declined a request to be someone's godfather because the christening was whilst I was at Tech*Ed. But to be fair it was also because I thought they were desperately seeking a Catholic (much lapsed as I am), and I have 1 special godson, and I wanted to keep it 1:1 special.

But this year scales new depths of guilt for me. Just over a week ago a special woman, a friend and fellow Marillion fan (along with her husband Mark); Jayne died. Today, Monday is her funeral, and I won't be there. I've spoken to Mark quite a bit since, he knows why, understands and thinks I should be here too.

But I feel such a shit for not being there. Mark knows I am there in spirit, but...

Jayne's favourite Marillion song Beautiful is being played at her service. I'll be listening to that a few times today. If you are reading this do me a favour - hop over to Spotify or iTunes or www.marillion.com or whatever, find Beautiful (from Afraid of Sunlight) and hit play. And say a prayer for Jayne and her husband Mark. He'll be having a really shit day today - and I can't help feeling guilty for making it just a smidge worse...

What a time to be in Berlin! #TEE09

I arrived early for some prep work. The last 2 evenings I've spent some time wandering around the Reichstag to Potsdammer Platz area.

Nineteen years ago when I first visited Berlin the Wall had only just come down and Roger Waters and a stellar cast were performing the classic Floyd album The Wall in Potsdammer Platz. A year earlier we'd have been shot just for being there; a few weeks earlier we might have been killed or maimed by the many landmines that had yet to be cleared. Instead nigh on 300,000 fans had quite a day.

This part of town is now a bundle of high rise smart office and shopping complexes and you'd never have known the Berlin Wall used to be there. Except you do. To celebrate (commemorate?) the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall the authorities have closed the roads and set up 100's of 'wall blocks' 8 feet high or so as a new wall. But this time the wall is not solid, they are setup like dominoes, and tomorrow night they fall! I will be there, and if you are at Tech*Ed, then you should be too.

And now as I write, there's a program on BBC World all about it.

Peter

PS is it a cultural thing, but i wonder why it's the 20th that counts. I'm sure at home in England it would have been the 25th that was the big one?

One thing I'll never do again!!!! #TEE09

I blogged that I did some filming yesterday for a Tech*Ed 101 session for people who are attending for the first time.

Being free just now I thought I'd attend one of those sessions.

I feel ill. Watching my ugly mug about 6' wide on the giant screen and all I can see is the stuff I don't like (me!)

Strangely the better clips were the ones that were hardest to do and took the most takes. I can now see the 2 I thought were OK were in fact rushed.

And the thing I won't do again? Watch any film with me in it, I'll do the recording again (if they want me that is!).