TechEd

TechEd Day 0 Summary

/ / Microsoft, Out-of-Band Post

The drive from Indianapolis to Orlando wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. I arrived within 16 hours (including stops) and the hotel was able to get me checked in early with no problem. Once I settled into the room I went on to the convention center to get registered. It took forever to find registration because I had no idea I were in the wrong building. I have to say the OCCC is so massive it’s amazing.

Once I registered I poked around a bit, took some pictures and discovered The Detroit Project car which is just amazing at how much technology they have crammed into it.

Once I was done in the expo hall I moved into the Alumni lounge with my buddy @IT_JOSH. While we were in the alumni lounge we met up with some fellow #TheKrewe members that I know on twitter and was thrilled to finally meet in person.

Later on that night was #TheKrewe Meet N Greet, this was exciting for me because I was coordinating all of the volunteers. I arrived and already had someone there starting to unpack the boxes of swag for #TheKrewe survival kit. We originally had 13 people scheduled to volunteer and had 22 people show up, we had 350 survival kits to assembly and completed it in 40 minutes. The night was fantastic and it couldn’t have been done without the help of all of our volunteers.

I have to say the Meet N Greet was the best networking opportunity ever, I was able to meet people from around the world, I even met someone who lived 30 minutes away from me and have made great connections I will be certain to maintain.

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#60Days2MCSE I Failed

/ / Administrator, Microsoft

Today is the day that I was hoping to call myself an MCSE, I am thrilled to hear that some who have taken the challenge have completed it and I am not shy to admit to my failure. This is not the first time that I’ve failed an exam and I am 100% positive it will not be the last. However I feel that this failure is the most beneficial to me because I have a greater understanding of what needs to be focused on, and what can be completely ignored.

While taking the exam I noticed it is mostly OpsMgr, followed by ServiceMgr, Orchestrator, Runbook Designer, and finally VMM. My exam was 40 questions long and some of them were complete guesses that I had to make. When asked what they tested on the best I can really describe is a lot on integrating the pieces and even more on setting up monitoring and reporting.

If you are at TechEd this week I strongly encourage you go take the exam even if you have never touched it in your life, because at least on you have taken you, you know what to focus on.

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TechEd Day 1 Summary

/ / Microsoft, Out-of-Band Post

Day 1 is coming to a close as I write it sitting pool side using the Samsung Series 7 Slate. I have learned a lot of new cool stuff is coming to the Microsoft world in the area of virtualization. However I am disappointed in the lack of technical knowledge that I’ve gained.

It is not that the technical knowledge wasn’t available, it was that I spent my day taking certifications. I started my day early at 7:30am for the Twitter Army, which lead up to going into the TechEd Keynote, I had to leave the keynote early to get to my first certification exam.

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TechEd 2012 – It Begins Now

/ / Microsoft, Out-of-Band Post

Ever since last year when I first attended TechEd I knew I wanted to come back. I decided to wait until I was closer to becoming full time before I requested to go. Back in January of this year I spoke with my boss about attending TechEd 2012, he went ahead and moved it up the ranks to get approval and I was lucky to have been approved. I was told to schedule everything then ask for the credit card. I got myself setup for a conference pass and staying at The Rosen Centre Hotel which is right next door.

Over the past few months I’ve been getting myself more involved with the community which is one major thing I had regretted last year, this time around I am doing it right. I decided to take the #60Days2MCSE challenge which I then moved into getting more involved with #TheKrewe. I am now ready to take my 70-246 and hopefully become MCSE: Private Cloud Certified. I am also ready to meet up with all of the new friends I’ve made withing #TheKrewe and I am ready to help throw one of the best TechEd 2012 parties!.

Over the past week is has been crazy for me, getting my schedule finalized, getting last minute studying done, getting bills paid before I am out of town, packing… oh yea and working. However I have everything packed now, and at the time of writing this I am T-24 hours from leaving my house in Indianapolis, IN and driving down to Orlando, Florida to have the best week of the year. It is going to be jam packed and exhausting but I would not change it for the world.

I will be tweeting my whole drive down to Florida (only when we stop of course!) I will also be tweeting our arrival and how the Hands-on-labs are once I get myself registered! If you are unable to attend TechEd I highly encourage you watch my twitter feed which I will be posting pictures on, and hopefully I will get some time to blog too!

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TechEd 2012 – The Schedule

/ / Microsoft, Out-of-Band Post

If you read my post on Important Resources for TechEd you will notice that I mentioned building your schedule, and overbooking yourself for all sessions. After doing such a thing you probably feel like you will be overwhelmed but do not fret. Just take a look at my planned schedule for TechEd!

Some of the events I have on here is specific for me, or are parties that registration may be closed already. Make certain you track down registration for parties because these are the best chances to network and is an extremely useful part of TechEd.

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