Quick quick before my memories of TechEd become one big melting pot of goo…

SESSIONS

Tom Arnold: Unit Testing with VS2005 Team System (is there not ONE easy to type out product name any more at Microsoft? ONE?). This was probably one of the hottest buzzes at TechEd. Tom went over in detail a lot of the implementation of this feature to oohs and aahs of the audience. There was an unfortunate 3rd party demo in the middle which just did not fit in and took away precious time for Tom (my opinion).  Rob Caron has a very detailed write up of the session.

Keith Ballinger: WSE2 and Messaging over multiple machines & networks. Keith wrote this stuff , Keith knows this stuff and Keith is a fantastic presenter. The most interesting piece to me of the messaging is the pub/sub stuff. Though I haven’t had to use any of this in my development, I find it to be pretty cool so I just like to keep getting it into my head for the day I can use it or point someone in the direction of it. John Bristowe has a great write up of this session. John and I sat in a similar session by Keith at last TechEd and I remember watching John throughout the talk as it was so obvious that he was grokking every word, every concept and completely excited about it. And it only gets better with the RTM bits.

Women in I.T. lunch

This will get it’s own post or article but basically- fantastic!!!! Maybe 500 attendees and an incredible panel. From our world: Kate Gregory, Michele Leroux Bustamante, Kimberly Tripp, Sara Williams and new to me (god, how have I missed this awesome woman!) Angela Mills. Also there was Caryn ______ from WITI who brought a very insteresting socio and psychological perspective. I know Kate and Michele very well and they both have vast experience in I.T. and had so much to share as did everyone else. And everyone brought a different perspective to the table though the theme ended up being the power of networking. What was wonderful was that not only are all of these women coming to us with experience of what works, they are all very insightful and excellent communicators. I kept thinking that any one of them could have one of those PBS programs where they just get up on stage and inspire millions. Not everyone is interested in being visible of course, but if you do want to be, it’s hard to figure out how to make that happen if it doesn’t just come naturally, so this ended up being the focal point of the discussion. I loved it of course because I think that more visibile women in the industry can encourage more women who love tech to dive in.

Angela is the Group Program Manager on the Indigo team.  Think about what that means she is in charge of. Like all of the panel, she had some incredibly valuable ideas to share. I was really blown away by her!

Women who Code BOF

That evening was the Women who Code BOF. It wasn’t packed, but just about the right size. Kate Gregory helped me lead it. What we ended up doing was everyone introduced themselves and told their story and each story led to some discussion. There were many in this BOF who had never really talked with other women in i.t. before and I think they were incredibly happy to share their stories and hear others and realize that they are not on an island with some of their experiences. Many of us also revel in being one of the few women around. One of the women there works with Fire Departments and because of her history with them and how she has proved her total competency, part of the training the Firefighters get is to treat her like a queen. Okay – now who is going to complain about a bunch of hunky firemen treating her like a queen. Not me!! 🙂

Richard Campbell took pics on Wednesday and one is from the luncheon. Funny, he’s got a picture of Michele giving a presentation, one of Kimberly doing a presentation, a picture of the panel at the women in i.t. luncheon and a picture he took in the hallway that has a bunch of women in it!

SOCIAL

I just can’t start listing who I was hanging around with all day. I hung out at the Cabana, spent a lot of time with Kate and many many people. Forget what days I met up with what people. It was just a constant stream and fun. Tim Huckaby always makes me laugh because every time he sees me he yells “Jules!”. He’s the only one who calls me that..so it’s pretty funny.

Every time I saw Ambrose he was helping to organize another fun (from what I have heard) blogger event. I kept missing them all. There was one at the Hyatt one of those nights. It’s just hard to be everywhere.

Wednesday was the “Influencers” party at Dick’s Hideaway. Then I left at 11 in an attempt to have my first good night’s sleep since my arrival.

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