My blogging has been on hiatus because of a lot of traveling these past few weeks.  I've logged over 12,000 miles in two weeks and all my clocks are on different time zones.  As I pickup the the pieces of the train-wreck that is my inbox these next few days, I thought a quick post about what's been going on in my life is in order.

Thank You Barcelona

Presenting at TechED - IT Forum has been one of the most rewarding things in my career so far.  I co-presented a consumer session called Vista After Hours with my friend Matt McSpirit.  We went in with the intention to not just inform the audience about "Microsoft's vision around consumer technologies," *marketing speak* but rather educate, enlighten, and inspire a seemingly boring group of business IT Pros about how cool Windows technology really is!  So what did we find out from this presumably dull group?  Well the reality is that IT Pros are really an excitable bunch if treated with an ounce of respect and humility.  See the comments and scores for yourself *we are the RED*.

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Verbatim Feedback

  • well done
  • Great to see Home server and Media Center on the schedule. Bit of a missed opportunity to show universal remote capability and some of the great community applications like My Movies and Media Guide. Should also have shown the D-Link & Linksys Media Extender technologies and explain that TVs will have extender technology integrated soon.
  • Execllent presenters on using new tech.
  • that was coool
  • very interesting presentathion, with sense of humor.
  • Good to see home/consumer stuff appearing at ITForum
  • Yes, i think we need more session like this!
  • More info on std. consumer tools in Vista, great session
  • very good session. Smart to have a less business-oriented session to wake up the techno-excitement that lies in all of us IT-persons. My wishlist for christmas just got longer...
  • please more at next teched
  • A good session for those who have not used the systems but very much a level 100.
  • Very good, should be in the next Teched !!!
  • Very good session
  • please get used to the elmo
  • Please more off this. We do have a life at home too!!!!!!
  • More of this!
  • Thought it might have been more in depth being a 300 session
  • Good Speakers, well prepared. Good idea to bring this session
  • Really Good Session, probably best of the whole event
  • Fun stuff
  • It was refreshing to see the consumer angle of Windows Vista, as well as the interconnectivity of Microsoft products. More of this please!!
  • Thanks to Viral & Matt. I think we should have more sessions for home users. Very informative.
  • Would have been nice with a deeper presentetion
  • Exellent!
  • Fun to watch, like to see more.
  • use the internet connection
  • good
  • a very good session
  • i really enjoyed a session with some light content compared to all the business tech stuff.
  • great overview, keep doing this, then rest of the it world needs to know this...
  • brilliant ...n have more session like this or min. one at each event to show us the cool gadges
  • some fun for a change is very welcome
  • great show, I loved it
  • Excellent presentation. You need to have more of these sessions as most of us are technology freaks, and we are always looking to find new things to put into our house. (and make the misses mad :))
  • good
  • xcellent! absolutely again next year.
  • known stuff no working sideshow come on guys you can do better ...
  • Really interesting to see some of the new technologies and how they interconnect - both guys presented really well.
  • was more an advertising session about other products (Homeserver, Zune etc.) than a session about Vista Media Extensions and Functionality!
  • It would be nice to have more of these sessions! Very nice to see!
  • Give us more! - also more advanced stuff with more devices and customization.
  • A good session - we need more of these demo type sessions.
  • I loved this session !! I've done most of the stuff already but it took ages to find out how - loving the technology and I got some great tips ! Well done ! See you on xbox live ! :o)
  • I really liked the session - it was 'a break' from all those business presentations and motivated me to rebuild all that I have seen at home :) Hope to see something like this next year!
  • great presentation!!!!, would like to see more on this subjebts in the future.
  • More sessions like this at IT Forum - It's nice to see a different aspect of cool technology working together.
  • This session was AWESOME!!!! People enjoyed the lighter side and we had a great time doing it! Thank you IT Forum for giving us this opportunity to entertain and educate your audience.
  • Very interesting session! Will be glad to see sessions like this on other MS events
  • After a long week with business oriented material, it was refreshing with a more "light" subject - and the session was very good, especially the Q&A
  • I would like to have seen more devices and what are on the market.
  • longer session next time
  • Good session to have here at Teched. Specially on Friday when many of us are teched out!
  • Very good session. Good to see some of MS's consumer grade products on show. This is a geek show so there was a lot of interest!
  • Bring it on
  • It was super *****
  • Couldn't fall asleep, so it must have been very good.
  • Too much about Home server. Too little about VISTA After Hours.
  • More such session: 1 per day can be interresting for the next IT Forum, so that we can chose wich one is to be visited.
  • Let's have a few more non-business focused presentations to lighten the mood!
  • Brilliant presentation can we have more of these types of breakout not only about applying this technology in the home but also in the workplace. Bring it on.
  • No info on dvb-c dvb-t or analog terrestrial TV signal tuners and the one provided was incorrect.
  • My confidence in Vista has now grown slightly although I am still a bit afraid of it!
  • Good Demos - You need to show more of the 'Surface'
  • Great to have some gadget sessions too

So a BIG thank you for all of your support guys, I have a feeling the organizer will be listening.

Vacationing

After Tech-Ed I was lucky enough to do some touristy stuff in Barcelona before heading out to India for a religious festival.  Barcelona is an interesting city in that the people are a mix of various world cultures.  The locals, for one, have an amazing sense of fashion and at times made me feel I was back home in LA.  The food is also an order magnitude better than what can be found in most parts of the UK and even Europe, though vegetarians be wary.  The people are also pretty nice though they do partly take after the French with their occasional Spanish "snootiness".

After Barcelona, I spent a week in Ahmedabad, India for a week long religious festival with my family.  Lessoned learned in this: DON'T GO TO INDIA FOR ONLY FIVE DAYS.  Traveling to India from the US or UK is a nightmare.  Don't get me wrong I had a lot of fun and would go back in a heartbeat, but I wouldn't exactly classify the trip as a vacation, rather an experience.

What's Next on the Calendar?

At present I'm in Falkirk, Scotland on the road for the TechNet roadshow.  On Thursday, I'll be in Manchester, then Reading, then London.  On December 4th, I'll be giving a strategic keynote presentation at Information Management Summit 2007 in London around the future of enterprise content management.  After all this stuff, to be honest, I have no clue what's on my calendar *TPS reports*