Wednesday, September 12, 2007 8:46 PM
I know that it has been a while since I last posted, but I have not had a lot to spout off about. That is until now.
I recently went through the process of qualifying for the Sleepless In NY contest that was being put on by DotNetRocks, Microsoft, and Infusion.
I would say that the process didn't seem to be too hard, but it was three different interviews with different people from Infusion. The idea was that if you passed all of the interviews and was lucky enough to make the cut then you would get an all expenses paid trip to New York to get some intense training from some Microsoft and Infusion folks on Silverlight and SharePoint.
Well, I guess I got pretty lucky because I was selected to make the trip. I was very psyched.
Now this was a trip worth writing about. When we got there, we were treated to a quick overview of SharePoint by Kurt from Infusion (talk about a guy that doesn't need any more caffeine….). After the introduction, we were taken to the 17th floor of a building located on Time Square for some kick ass barbeque.
I was out until about 1:00am ET and headed back to the hotel. Now don't get me wrong, we were going to have some INTENSE training, so I wanted to get some shut eye before the real training started.
The next morning when we go there we found out that we would have an all star cast of presenters and judges that would be taking part in the event. We had the likes of Lawrence Liu (Microsoft SharePoint Guru), Sahil Mailik (SharePoint Extraordinaire) , Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell (DotNetRocks.net), Bob Fox (SharePoint MVP), and a list of other really great folks from Infusion.
Anyhow we went through the day with some really great sessions about WPF, Silverlight, and SharePoint. We also had a great presentation by Lawrence about the upcoming additions to SharePoint that were being worked on by the SharePoint Community at CodePlex, called the CKS (Community Kit for SharePoint). I would highly suggest you check it out. The work they are doing is unbelievable and you can get in on the action.
Later that day through contests a few people walked away with some very cool prizes. Things like Tom Binh laptop backpacks, great books on SharePoint, a Microsoft Zune, and even an Xbox360 Elite. There was also an Insomniac Laptop and a Trip to Redmond as some of the larger prizes. The nice part is that the guy who never wins anything won the Xbox. Yep, I got lucky and was awarded the crème of the crop Xbox. I was so shocked, I thought they were talking about someone else when the called my name. It took a bit to figure out that I was the only Mike in the room. J
As the day wore on we were assigned a project to do over night and would have to present in front of the judges the next morning. Needless to say the group I was a part of tried all night to get out project done. It was unfortunate, but we did try pretty hard.
After that I left for home. I would have to say that the gang and Infusion and everyone else that took part did a bang up job of taking care of our every need and definitely over delivered on the weekend. It would be at the very minimum to say that they did an outstanding job. I truly don't think there are any words to describe what a terrific job they did.
Keep an eye out for other contests like this. Infusion mentioned that if this was a success that they would probably be doing more. If they do, do everything you can to get selected. It is a worthwhile investment of your time, and you will not regret it.
Michael