jorkeo - hosting geek : Tech.Ed

Down and Dirty with tech•ed backstage

jorkeo — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:24:52 GMT

Sign up for the dirt and all view of what happens with the production of tech•ed 09 Australia. Subscribe to http://techedbackstage.net/ – to get the low down on what is going on. Here is the first post…

Welcome to the start of tech•ed Backstage. This blog is designed to give the world the view of what goes on in the background of running the tech•ed Australia 2009 conference from all the people the work in the Technology team and those that we interact with in developing the production.

We’re going to give the warts and all view of what’s involved in doing this focusing around the pragmatic approach of logistic and planning for this event and those related such as:

Products and technology used for the event
How the logistical planning is done
How to you build a network for such and event and all the prep work.
Tons of other information in mind numbing detail!

Plus of course lots of statistics and prediction that all go into delivering this kind of technology for the event.

So first of all some introductions for the core delivery team;

Jorke Odolphi – Microsoft – Infrastructure Architecture Evangelist / tech•ed Technology Guy – responsible for the delivery of the infrastructure technology and ensuring and enabling that Microsoft has the best technology on show.

Other duties include attending long meetings and staying awake, breaking down barriers in delivery, helping the business understand the logistics and food/wine tasting.

(source: flickr.com/photos/heroeshappen)

Codify – International Men of Mystery – These guys actually DO the delivery of all the core infrastructure to tech•ed such as network connectivity, Wireless Networks, building machines for speaker rooms and connecting everyone to the internet. Simply put if you’re going to be putting anything on the network at tech•ed these guys are involved in some form. As a result they’re slaves to the network for the event!

To protect their identity (and they’re camera shy) the picture on the right is an artists rendition.. (source wikipedia.org)

Jomablue – International Men of Mystery – again another group of camera shy individuals. These guys are the core of the logistics for the event. When any piece of technology is placed in a location in the event these are the guys bumping it in, plugging it in and making sure the the power is right and in fact everything is right.

To protect their identity (and they’re camera shy) the picture on the left is an artists rendition.. (source wikipedia.org)

Of course we’re only scraping the surface of what we all do, and we can’t forget all the other people we interact with such as the tech•ed core team, Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre staff and if course all the awesome staging staff. We’ll be hearing from all those people leading up to the event, so sit back take it in and tell us what you’d love to hear from the bluelit parts of tech•ed.

So check it out at http://techedbackstage.net/

- jorke

Tech.Ed 2009 Windows 7 Experience – Netbooks for you!

jorkeo — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:13:20 GMT

So FINALLY we can talk about a project that’s been happening for a while now. I’ve picked up a job for Tech.Ed 2009 as overall infrastructure guy so i’ve been working on ensuring that we have the best technology to deliver and awesome event. Aside from that we had a question earlier in the year which was…”what if we give every paid teched delegate a netbook with windows 7”…. While my head is still spinning from the awesomeness of this idea and all the planning we are doing, Nick Hodge has put the hard yards and pushed it through.

All documented here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/nickhodge/archive/2009/06/30/big-things-in-mini-packages.aspx

http://www.nickhodge.com/blog/archives/3143

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090630/teched-australia-attendees-free-hp-mini-windows-7/

So a BIG shout out to the hard work Nick Hodge has been working so hard on this for the past few months. Now we go into the fun part of getting them on the network and doing some awesome things. We’ve already started planning this, with a wireless survey of the Gold Coast Convention Centre - as you can see, there’s a lot of air to cover!

-jorke

Tech.Ed Day 2/3 and Dusted

jorkeo — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 06:35:43 GMT

Well that was the hugest Tech.Ed ever and all I can say is "ma legs, ma legs.. can't feel my legs!..". I spent the last 2 days on the MS showcase stand around the Dev Garten and talked to literally hundreds of customers and partners. For those that want to follow up with feel free to ping me.

Caught a very cool presentation by Steve Riley - The Fortified Datacentre of the Future - Build it and they will come - a subject very close to my heart.

Movieworld was the party venue which we were a little late getting to after taking some of our influencers out to dinner to a very reputable establishment... Then tried to show our Eric from the IIS team the town with Mossyblog - but I was locked out and it was a slow night.

Final day rocked, being Frank's last day as an Microsoft Australia employee Nigel and David hi-jacked Frank's session and sang "Bye Bye, Mr Developer Guy"

Video: bye bye mr develoepr guy (frank arrigo)

Then in the lock note we all wore our "Farewell Frank" shirts that have Simpson's characters of the whole DPE team. Check out the delicategenius' flickr for who is who.

All in all a nice send off for Frank, who I'm sure will be back for future Tech.Ed's.

Good Luck Frank!

We also managed to hook up the Geek Girls - and we have something special coming from them in the future.

- jorke

Halo 3 Hoodies

jorkeo — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:56:17 GMT

Check it out - Deeps modeling a Halo 3 hoodie - show the technet love and you might get one.

-jorke

Tech.Ed Day 1

jorkeo — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:05:40 GMT

tech.ed is off and rocking, awesome keynote from AnimalLogic who've worked on Happy Feet and 300 plus the Carlton Big Ad - really cool to see how these guys work and I love their idea of Best Practice being "Getting the Job Done". Great keynote by Frank, where did he get those tourists??

Spent some time connecting with customers on the booth and looking at aliveroom.com

Blogger's lunch had some interesting
content, loved the esky's - but
where was the beer.

Then I was nailed at ask the experts, sheesh there were some tough questions so I ended up hanging with some of the hardcore iis team, bunch of very cool guys.

Rest of the time I've spent dodging Nick Hodge with his video camera..

well and truly shattered and time to rest, then rinse repeat!

-jorke

Tech.Ed bound

jorkeo — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 10:31:54 GMT

Tech.Ed is next week starting Tuesday - totally sold out. Johann and Deeps are getting excited with the showcase and stand set-ups.

Chuck has lined me up manning some of the Microsoft Booths which we'll be showing off some of the coolest new developments, be sure to check out the Hands-On-Lab that Chuck has created.

See you there.

-jorke

Chaaaangess..

jorkeo — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 10:26:08 GMT

With Frank returning to the mothership a few things have shuffled around, well not much for me anyway being the DPE teams "n00b".. I now report to Anna Liu who is like the smartest tech chick I know - which is awesome!

I've also had a small title change so I'm now a Web Platform Architect Evangelist (mouthfull) which better reflect my focus on all the stuff running on Internet facing platforms.

I just lurve to talk Software+Services with anyone and how your platform is so important to that, hit me up anytime for a chat.

Its Frank's last day to day in the Sydney office, catch him at Tech.Ed next week for his finale.

-jorke