I am super excited to be back in Orlando. Well, OK; not really. I am excited to be at the return of the Microsoft Exchange Conference, though I certainly wish it were being held in another city. The hotel so far has been quite nice; it is huge, very nicely appointed, and features custom MEC-themed room keys (though the in-room Internet has been a bit flaky; not at all uncommon I arrived too late to make the welcome reception (or registration), and as I am still finalizing my slides I opted to call room service and hole up for the night tonight. However, judging by reports on Twitter it seems that the folks who attended the reception both liked it and scored lots of interesting swag.
Speaking of Twitter, it’s remarkable how the widespread use of social media systems like Twitter have changed the conference-going experience… for the better, in my opinion. Back in the day, it was a novelty when I live-blogged events. Now that’s common– I expect to see Twitter blowing up tomorrow as attendees dissect the keynotes in real time. It can be a bit distracting trying to follow along while watching the keynote at the same time, but it’s well worth the effort. Tomorrow MEC features two keynotes: one given by Michael Atalla, from the Exchange marketing team, and the other a technical keynote presented by Ross Smith IV. The rest of the day is dedicated to other Exchange 2013 sessions delivered by Microsoft folks.
My own sessions are on Tuesday and Wednesday:
- E14.303, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Exchange Unified Messaging,” is at 1:30p on Tuesday and again at 10:15a on Wednesday
- E14.302, “Developing Mobile Apps with Exchange Web Services,” is at 10:45a on Tuesday and again at 8:30a on Wednesday
I’ll also be at the MVP Happy Hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I’m looking forward both to seeing familiar faces from the Exchange world and meeting new people… drop by and say hello!
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