Hero's Happen Here Global Launch event in Los Angeles Report

It was good... Great in fact for the price...

Nothing earth shattering, but still pretty cool. Tom Brokov open the keynote with an interesting 30 minute talk. A reminder that there's a world outside our cubes and data centers, a world that we can help to make better.

Then Mr Ballmar came out and handled the rest of the keynote (but no "Developer, developer, developer! "). The presentation was smooth and polished. Almost a little too polished? Very little spontaneity, and felt like a well rehearsed stage show. Which I guess it was, so I'm not sure what I'm whining about, it just felt a little to slick... to much like an infocommercial. But then again, Microsoft seems to be held to a higher standard so if they had come out with an impromptu, less rehearsed and slick show, then that would have caused comment too...

Nothing "new" announced, which makes sense. I'm sure "new, cool stuff announcements" are being saved up for Mix (Though Scott G. has already posted about some very cool Silverlight 2 Beta 1 stuff)

The swag was nice, with good bit of cool vendor swag, an interesting Hero's Happen Here coffee table book (11" x 13"), 1 year evals of Windows Server Enterprise 2008, SQL Server 2008 CTP 5 (Nov 2007) with a code to get an eval for the RTM version, and Visual Studio 2008 Standard.

The breakouts where good and well presented. The only issue was that the rooms were way to small for the turnout. The first breakout I went to on the Dev track, the room was very full (and the guy sitting next to me was making me crazy... the joy of conferences...) so I moved over to the Data track. As I left the room, there was a line stretching a good way down the hall and around the corner and then down that hall... A very long line to an already full room.

In the end, my change to the Data track was a great move. I'm pretty up to speed on the coolness in VS2008, but much less so SQL 2008. And in the sessions I attended I learned a number of things where SQL Server 2008 can help me solve the problems I'm having today (so it kills me that I have to wait 6 months for it... sigh... ).

What coolness did I learn about in SQL 2008 that I haven't blogged about before?

Transparent, out of band auditing (think compliance). Transparent encryption, transparent page/row compression and cross server policy application (i.e. make sure all the servers are configured the same and nag if they are not, automagically). That's just the start...

Perfect show? Na... There were too many people in too little a space (then again I hate crowds, so take that with a grain of salt...). If you were a noob to MS conferences, you didn't know to grab lunch, and a seat, early. To keep an eye open for the hidden lunch/seating places where you can avoid the major crowds. You didn't know to go to the conference swag booth first (i.e. avoid the initial vendor swag rush, bypassing it to get the conference swag). You didn't know to get to the sessions early to get a seat. To sit on the offside of the room, on the row next to the wall so if you have to escape from the guy behind you who's chatting with three of his friends throughout the presentation and the guy next to you who desperately needs to blow his nose, it's easy. To skip the vendors until the middle of the first or second breakout to avoid the rush and have time to actually talk to someone. Same for the Microsoft Pavilion... Pretty much all usual conference and breakout room stuff...

Still I have to say given the price I paid to attend ($14 for the train ticket) it was a very good day. I came away with some great information that was new to me, talked to a few MS people and ask some questions face to face, geek-out with a number of new people and not have to drive anywhere. Yeah, it was a good day and a great deal... Thank you Microsoft.

 

Sigh, but no one stopped me in the hall and said, "Hey are you Greg, of Greg's Cool Thing of the Day blog...?" (Which I guess is good as it would have kind of freaked me out... LOL)