TechEd

TechEd 2008 Tweener Weekend - What we learned

Dave Noderer — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:43:03 GMT

Updated: 2008-06-10

The first Teched Tweener weekend aka ]InBetween[ was put together by our Developer Evangilist, Joe Healy and the Florida community leaders. The event was two days held on June 7/8, 2008 between the Developer and ITPro weeks of Teched in Orlando.

We had nine rooms to utilize and Joe asked a number of people to lead specific tracks which included .NET Code Camp, Day of Silverlight, Agile Camp, RoboCamp, ITPro Camp, SQL University, ToolShed, Office Communications Server University, DotNetNuke University and a large Open Space area. All this shifted and changed as we approached the actual event but is a good representation of what happened.

The whole weekend was a great experience and hopefully future tweener weekends will be even better.

Some lessons learned were:

Open Space: Make people go to the open space, either have the registration there or force them to go visit in order to get coffee, schedules, etc.
Open Space: Organize the open space (assuming a large area) with the vendors, information, user groups, and other organizations in the middle so that people can take a "tour" so it would be clear where to go.
Open Space: Make sure there are specific tables for event information and user groups. Or more than one user group table even if someone wants to staff it.
We had the corners setup with small seating areas and a large plasma screen for presentations. Make sure you get some things scheduled in advanced and publicized so that there will always be something going on while still leaving open slots for dynamic scheduling.
Open Space: Create a dynamic scheduling tool so that when people sign up for it is all automatic (From Nikita who ran the open space).
Location: Get all the rooms in the same area, same floor and ideally all together. I can attest to the issues and many miles of walking I had to do to keep track of four rooms on different floors and opposite sides of the South end of the convention center in Orlando.
Schedules: Put someone in charge specifically of the overall track schedules so that the room assignments and track titles are always up to date.
Schedules: Make each track publish a more detailed session schedule, it was very confusing to attendees that many of the tracks did not have any detail ahead of time and in some cases the day of the event.
Schedules: Maybe even put someone in charge of getting all the schedules printed. It is very useful but has to be done the morning of the event to have the best chance of being up to date. This means that the convention center kinko's that opens at 9am will not do. I submitted the job online the night before and picked up the printing at a nearby kinkos the next morning.
Schedules: Have all sessions start at the same time. There was confusion as to when various things started. As much as possible, synchronize all sessions.
Registrations: Make a central website for all the info, we used Joe Healy's Devfish.net blog site which was ok but he is busy too and updates took a long time in some cases.
Registrations: Make a central scheduling tool that allows the attendees to click off the days and events. Allow the track chairs to monitor counts and get the name/emails afterwards. This was another point that was very confusing to attendees with every track having a different registration. From the event viewpoint only a master list of names was required. With this, registration could be left open until the night before the event when the badges could be printed, instead of collecting all the registrations days in advance.
Web: Shawn Weisfield (I think) registered floridatweener.com, I registered techedtweener.com and .net which I'm happy to donate to future tweener events but I suspect the tweener name will not survive exposure to the Microsoft machine...
Signage: We really did not have any signage, a few suggestions without going too crazy:
- Directions at the entrances to the convention center where registration is located
- Directions inside the convention center to the Open Space area. Open Space is where all the information, schedules and directions can be obtained.

Party: Nothing more to add here, nobody will top the party that Jessica Sterner arranged at the Destiny night club. .net girls and a project runway competition will give you the flavor...
Swag: There was a lot of confusion about swag, even for me. All of a sudden there were books in some of the rooms to be distributed. Some people got no books and others went from room to room collecting as much as possible. One idea would be to give a few books to each speaker to distribute at their session but then make everyone come to the open space room where we could setup a "free" bookstore.
Swag: Giving away a few X-Box's at the event would be great. For the code camp tracks I had a couple but none of us had discussed in advance how the distribution would work and I did not have anything setup. In the end I took mine to the party where they got lots of public exposure.
Evaluations: Don't try to use evals for giveaways, this gets too complicated and did not work at all this weekend. One problem is that there was not a space for the person's name or email, which makes sense as you probably get more accurate evals if anonymous but useless for drawings.
Raffle: Just give each person a raffle ticket as they register or maybe better a raffle ticket for each session they attend. At the end have a raffle and give away the valuable swag plus any books or software that might be available.
Rooms: Assign a host to each rooms or at least those that are next to each other. Make sure the speaker is hooked up and working. Point out / help with microphones / AV. Make announcements.
Name: Kyle Baley suggests Twixter as sounding cooler than Tweener (and perhaps more acceptable to Microsoft) and some more punch than InBetween (my opinion).

I'll add more as I think about it or hear from others.

Arrived at Teched 2008

Dave Noderer — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:53:32 GMT

Sitting in the "bloggers" lounge near the stage.

Nice backpack with much heavier duty zippers than last year.

Out of XL staff shirts, only 2XL and M left...

INETA User Group Leader Summit will be in N330 AB at 2:30 PM.

INETA Teched 2005 MSN Space - Pictures now available!

Dave Noderer — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 21:13:00 GMT

http://spaces.msn.com/members/INETATechEd2005/

INETA Community Lounge

Dave Noderer — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 00:58:00 GMT

The INETA booth this year is in the Community Cabana area and can be identified by the plastic palm trees, INETA banners and INETA beach balls.

Periodically during the day you may see the INETA Prize Patrol wandering around the convention center, identified by a group of somewhat roudy developers with parrot hats and a boom box. They are looking for people with INETA badge inserts to give prizes to.

Also twice each day there are grand prize drawings.. Prizes inlcude X-Box's, pocket pc's and spot watches, all require the INETA badge insert which are going fast and only a few are available at the booth.

There is a rumor of a secret stash in the Microsoft Technology bus outside of the North Concourse....

INETA User Group Leader Summit!!

Dave Noderer — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 00:53:00 GMT

Again this year, INETA put on a full day User Group Leader Summit on Sunday before Teched. Over 150 people came and was sponsored by both INETA (Developer user groups) and Culminis (IT Pro User Groups).

Besides the intense networking between user group leaders there were a series of workshops in the afternoon. Three tracks covered all sorts of topics including newsletters, marketing, volunteer orgainzation, funding, and leadership for user group leaders. This is a good chance for the North American INETA leadership to meet with a large number of user group leaders from all around the country. Representatives from the other regions also attended.

A number of changes in the board of directors was announced as some of founding members Bill Evjen, Brian Loesgen, Keith Franklin, Keith Pleas and Julie Lerman move onto a newly formed Advisory board. Bill stays on as past president to share his experience with the new board. This group has done a great service to the developer user group community growing INETA to it's current scope of 772 user groups representing 374197 developers in five regions worldwide. Thanks Bill, Brian, Keith, Keith and Julie!!

INETA May Newsletter

Dave Noderer — Fri, 27 May 2005 17:39:00 GMT

Lots of community related information including a schedule for the INETA User Group Leader Summit we are holding on Sunday, June 5th in Orlando in conjunction with Teched...

http://www.ineta.org/newsletters/2005_05.htm

Wednesday Birds of a Feather Sponsored by INETA and Culminis

Dave Noderer — Thu, 26 May 2005 22:39:00 GMT

Can't get enough during the day?? Check out these sessions, all are interactive, not presentations. You get to ask lots of questions and add your own opinions and experiences! These are all posted on the Teched site and can be added to your personal calendar from there....

Sponsored by INETA and Culminis!! Check at the BOF table at night or the INETA community lounge during the day for last minute changes.

Time	Room	Host(s)	Topic
6:30 PM	Cabana 1	Julie Lerman	Life on the bleeding edge
6:30 PM	Cabana 2	Aaron Skonnard	Migrating ASMX to Indigo
6:30 PM	Cabana 4	Keith Brown	Writing partially trusted code
6:30 PM	Cabana 6	TBD	Available for Just-In-Time BoF session
6:30 PM	Cabana 8	Randy Miller	Innovative Techniques in .NET Development
6:30 PM	Cabana 10	Gary Sinkowitz	Securing Web Application Environment using a Dedicated Hoster
6:30 PM	Cabana 12	Sue Mosher	Outlook Power Users Gathering
6:30 PM	Cabana 14	Rick Gasper	Piracy in the Academic Community
6:30 PM	Cabana 16	Ama Keisha Trotter	SharePoint 2003 Server (As Intranet and as an Extranet)
6:30 PM	Break-out	Robert Hurlbut	Developing software as a non-administrator
7:45 PM	Cabana 1	TBD	Available for Just-In-Time BoF session
7:45 PM	Cabana 2	Jay Glynn	Pragmatic Architecture
7:45 PM	Cabana 4	Jeffrey Palermo	Agile Methodologies With .NET
7:45 PM	Cabana 6	TBD	Available for Just-In-Time BoF session
7:45 PM	Cabana 8	Dave Simons	Client Application Management in Distributed Environments
7:45 PM	Cabana 10	Alex Keh	Using Oracle on .NET and Windows
7:45 PM	Cabana 12	Doug Hung	Working with Microsoft Exchange 2003 (was: Microsoft Exchange 2003 Issues)
7:45 PM	Cabana 14	Ross LoForte	SQL Server Security
7:45 PM	Cabana 16	Kit George	Meet the CLR team
7:45 PM	Break-out	Tim Huckaby	What the heck is a Smart Client Application?!
9:00 PM	Cabana 1	Christopher Reed	CSS and ASP.NET
9:00 PM	Cabana 2	Aaron Skonnard	BizTalk Contracts and the Web Services Publishing Wizard
9:00 PM	Cabana 4	Brian Noyes	Smart Client Deployment
9:00 PM	Cabana 6	TBD	Available for Just-In-Time BoF session
9:00 PM	Cabana 8	Kit George	Managed Performance: Writing faster managed code
9:00 PM	Cabana 10	Kevin Fisher	Enterprise Authentication, Authorization, and Security Meta-data Framework
9:00 PM	Cabana 12	Jason Zions	Integrating Windows and non-Windows platforms
9:00 PM	Cabana 14	Holly Dyas	It's not your father's TechNet subscription: the new TechNet subscription for IT Pros
9:00 PM	Cabana 16	Abraham Martinez	Security for Wi-Fi Hotspots
9:00 PM	Break-out	Keith Brown	Writing Secure Code

Tuesday Birds of a Feather sponsored by INETA and Culminis!

Dave Noderer — Thu, 26 May 2005 22:35:00 GMT

Sponsored by INETA and Culminis!! Check at the BOF table at night or the INETA community lounge during the day for last minute changes.

Time	Room	Host(s)	Topic
6:30 PM	Cabana 1	Scott Hanselman	Software Factories: Making ASP.NET Server Controls simpler
6:30 PM	Cabana 2	Keith Pleas	Migrating VB6 to VB.NET
6:30 PM	Cabana 4	Gabriel Torok	.NET Code Protection
6:30 PM	Cabana 6	Fritz Onion	Asynchronous request processing in ASP.NET 2.0
6:30 PM	Cabana 8	Mitch Ruebush	Making YOUR Software Development Process Fit into Visual Studio Team System
6:30 PM	Cabana 10	Kit George	Performance Engineering: building a performance culture in your organization
6:30 PM	Cabana 12	Todd Follansbee	Taking Your Product To Market
6:30 PM	Cabana 14	Chris Haaker	Information Technology in Small & Medium Sized Enterprises: Doing More With Less
6:30 PM	Cabana 16	Abraham Martinez	Hacking Exposed
6:30 PM	Break-out	Darrell Norton	Test-Driven Development is Design!
7:45 PM	Cabana 1	Rob Foster and Mike Houston	Best Practices in SharePoint Development
7:45 PM	Cabana 2	Mike Sax	Components: Buy vs. Build
7:45 PM	Cabana 4	Jean-Luc David	XAML vs. Windows Forms
7:45 PM	Cabana 6	Dan Wygant	CAS and NoTouch Deployment
7:45 PM	Cabana 8	Don Demsak	XSLT2, XQuery and Saxon.Net
7:45 PM	Cabana 10	Julie Lerman	Women who Code
7:45 PM	Cabana 12	Ed Cowen	Preparing for a MBS Great Plains install
7:45 PM	Cabana 14	Ron Gandiza	The Project Management Issues Facing IT Professionals
7:45 PM	Cabana 16	Jackie Goldstein	What are MS Patterns and Practices and Why Should I Care?
7:45 PM	Break-out	Aaron Skonnard and Tim Ewald	Contract-First Web Services: Step-by-Step
9:00 PM	Cabana 1	Rob Steward	Performance optimization and database access in the enterprise environment with ADO.NET
9:00 PM	Cabana 2	TBD	Available for Just-In-Time BoF session
9:00 PM	Cabana 4	Scott Bellware	Data Access for Business Objects with NHibernate
9:00 PM	Cabana 6	TBD	Available for Just-In-Time BoF session
9:00 PM	Cabana 8	Josh Ledgard	The Developer Community and the Role Microsoft Should Play
9:00 PM	Cabana 10	Mark Dunn	BizTalk Server 2004 Solutions: Build vs. Buy
9:00 PM	Cabana 12	Chris Haaker	Working with ISA Server 2004 (was: ISA Server 2004)
9:00 PM	Cabana 14	Ed Roberts	Deploying and Managing Small Business Server (SBS) 2003
9:00 PM	Cabana 16	Kai Axford	Microsoft, Security, and You
9:00 PM	Break-out	Juval Lowy	Preparing for Indigo

Orlando User Group Meeting at Teched - Updated

Dave Noderer — Tue, 17 May 2005 15:29:00 GMT

Joel Martinez who runs the Orlando .NET User Group has arranged to hold a user group meeting during TechEd.

More details to follow but his is the information he has available so far:

“The meeting will be on June7th at 7pm at the Orlando Convention Center, room N-329. The C# team will be speaking about ... umm ... C#“

The user group web site can be found at: http://www.onetug.org

---------------------------------------------------------

Updated Info as of 5/31/2005:

C# Team

A summary for this event is not available at this time. The meeting will be held at The Orlando Convention Center in Room N-329.

Non-registered guests will need to check in at the Ancillary Event Guest Counter that is located just outside the show office (Orchid Restaurant) so that they can pick up their Guest Passes to attend.

INETA Activities at Teched 2005

Dave Noderer — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 11:51:00 GMT

INETA (International .NET Association) will have a number of activites... The major ones planned so far are:

1. On Sunday, June 5th, INETA will hold a User Group Leaders Summit. This all day event is jointly hosted by both INETA (Developer User Groups) and Culminus (IT Pro User Groups). There will be both an IT Pro and a Developer keynote address plus common and separate sessions and a series of workshops. Any user group leader or people involved in the user group community is welcome to attend but you must register by sending you name, email, city/state and the user group you attend or run to: teched@ineta.org.

2. On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings there will be a series of almost 60 Birds of a Feather sessions that will be held in the cabana areas from 6:30 pm to 10:00 pm. As of this writing the detailed schedules have not been posted but this should happen within a couple of days.

3. INETA will have an booth / area in the community lounge. Details are still hush hush but will be available soon. Be on the lookout for the prized “INETA Badge Insert”.

To get the INETA newsletter which will have updates, up may subscribe at: www.ineta.org.