No Demos
I've been to a lot of TechEd's, I've been going as either a delegate, partner, or member of Microsoft since 1997. In fact this is my 2nd TechEd this year so far. So I've seen a lot of keynotes, heard a lot of product announcements, and seem a lot of demos. I've also heard the terms "Super Excited", many more times than I care to remember (Aargh!).
But Duncan, Nigel, Darryl,Kevin, Mauricio and I thought this keynote was different.
Wonderfully different.
For the first time in all of the TechEd's I've been to, there were no demos. There were human beings on stage just talking to us. No "high fives", no "Exciteds" at all, no "Woohoo's" and no strutting around. Just people.
The theme of the keynote was connection. How software plus services brought the backend and front end services to the users and connected them. Ron Jacobs and Mike Platt talked about how the architecture and services that we're putting in place holds the key to productivity in this web 2.0 world. Then, Lou Carbone came on. Lou talked about NorthWest Airlines and Howard Johnsons, Towel origami and Disney. He spoke about making an emotional connection with the customer, something that Starbucks has totally failed to do in New Zealand. He mentioned the snow in Minneapolis, the sunshine at Lion rock and how the folding of toilet rolls in hotels affects our experience at an emotional level and connects us to the hotel brand.
Lou was compelling, engaging, measured and witty and the hush in the auditorium was palpable. He should be hired to deliver the keynote at our internal conferences like MGx and TechReady,
TechEd's around the world should take note. The keynote presentation should be just like this keynote in New Zealand. A compelling message from our the leaders in the industry - not a hurried presentation with numerous disjointed demos that invariably overruns the allotted time. The rest of the sessions can deal with the demos. The keynote should just talk about the vision and scene.
We could really learn a lot about picking up the clues to make the deep emotional connection. The emotional connection with the customer. And that matters...
