I know I am late to the game, Ignite ended over a week ago! I would just like to share my perspective on how the week went, as it was quite different than I am used to. This year I went to Ignite as Staff, I’ve never worked a conference, let alone one the size of Ignite.
Note: I thought it would be a good idea to shave – not doing this again for a long time!
My week of Ignite actually started quite early, I arrived Friday May 1st in the evening to Chicago. My first thought it holy cow I’m going to hate Chicago, they had the NFL Draft going, and traffic was crazy. I’ve been to Chicago before but did not remember how much traffic there was! After missing a turn and adding an additional 20 minutes to my 2 1/2 hour drive from Indianapolis I was ready to unwind in the hotel. Check-in was fairly easy, aside from the long wait to check in.
It has been nearly 8 months since my last blog post. For that I’d like to apologize, as I really would love to have been posting all of this time; it just hasn’t been realistic for me. Let me recap what has happened in that time.
October 2014: Made an offer on my first house
November 2014: Moved into my first house
December 2014: Holiday madness and still settling in the house
January 2015: Working on new Training videos for Pearson
February 2015: Still working on the training videos
March 2015: Wrapping up training videos for Pearson, trying to have a bit of a life.
April 2015: Company I work for was sold, started looking at new career opportunities
May 2015: Attended Microsoft Ignite 2015, started a new job!
I started looking at houses around September of last year, and fell in love with one of the houses I looked at. I made an offer on the house and within a months time I was moving it. I wasn’t expecting it to happen so fast, but I am glad it did. I’ve been here since November of last year and it provided a great private recording studio for me!
The new videos I’ve been working on are about to come out! It is a video series focused on helping you pass the 70-346 exam. You can take a look at it for when it will be coming out later this month! On InformIT, or if you have a Safari Books Online Subscription you can see it there.
April 1st was quite an interesting day for me. That is the day that the buy-out of the company I work for was announced. I had been at Apparatus for nearly 4 years, and in all honesty we were like a family. I am still very close with a lot of people at the company and I wish them the best. I just thought that after that announcement was made it was a hint that it was time for me to move on; after-all working in IT at the same company for 4 years is quite amazing for a millennial. My last day at Apparatus was May 1st, and the I left work and headed for Microsoft Ignite 2015.
Microsoft Ignite, was quite an experience – in fact you will be seeing a detailed write-up about that later this week. Let’s just say it is a much bigger event and there are still all of the great opportunities you had available to you at TechEd.
Upon my return from Microsoft Ignite 2015, I started my new job as the Systems Architect at Gaylor Electric, Inc. This is quite a change from what I’ve done for the last 4 years. I will now own my very own infrastructure, and be able to make the decisions on what I think is best for the company and the environment. My first week has been completed and I’ve already put the wheels in motion for some sweeping changes to bring this company to the latest and greatest Microsoft Technologies. I really look forward to the opportunity this is going to give me to go deeper into specific technologies that I’ll be sharing on this blog!
Overall you are going to see me becoming much more social, I am going to be as active as humanly possible on Social Networks and keeping this blog as active as possible. I look forward to feedback and hearing about topics that everyone is interested in hearing more about!
TechEd has come, and TechEd has gone… there were some cool announcements and some disappointments in the overall conference. Let’s start with the cool announcements and fun things that did happen at Microsoft TechEd 2014.
I have had a goal over the last two years to become a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT). I was already half way there by holding an MCITP certificate in Windows 7 and Server 2008; however I still had to finalize the last requirement of either obtaining my CompTIA CTT+ or attending a Train The Trainer course. Earlier this summer I had started the path to obtain my CTT+ by purchasing and began reading the book to prep me for the exam. About a month later the details for the MCT Summit along with the Train The Trainer course was posted. I spoke with my manager about the positives and negatives of the Train the Trainer path and we decided that was best.
2013 MCT Summit Baby MCT’s with their trainers
Last month the on September 16th and 17th I spent my entire day in a room with 25 other people wanting to become MCT’s. A few weeks prior to this I had received a few emails with pre-course work that needed to be completed. Nothing too major just an evaluation asking what I was hoping to learn, a assessment quiz to gauge where I was with the CTT+, and a document I had to fill out, outlining what my presentation would be on.
The last three years I have been extraordinarily lucky that I have been able to attend Microsoft TechEd. Every year I have participated in a group known as #TheKrewe and I have striven to force myself into social situations more and more every year.
What is #TheKrewe?
#TheKrewe 2013 Group Photo
“The Krewe is a community organized professional networking group. Our mission is to build a dynamic networking community through various activities and gatherings. The Krewe primarily meets at Microsoft TechEd North America every year where we have The Krewe Meet ‘N Greet the day prior to the opening of the conference. Our group takes Networking to a whole new level, we are all close friends and are open to helping each other in any way possible be it through charitable works or by helping solve a question that has you stumped in your professional life. We are IT people from every level of the career, you may find someone totally new to IT who is just starting off or meet someone who has 20 years’ experience and is an MVP, MCT, MCP and any other abbreviation you can think of.”
– IAMKREWE.ORG
Year 1 Experience
My first year at Microsoft TechEd was in 2011 and I was still a student in college. I had no idea what I was doing attending this conference, I just knew I was excited and I was ready to learn. As the conference approached I realized I wanted to find evening parties as much as possible… after all I was 21 and who doesn’t love free drinks? …
