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The last few days has been an "eye-opening" experience for me watching the interactions between thousands of people at TechEd. I think what impresses me the most is the learning and sharing that is going on amongst this unique group of folks.

Virtually everywhere you go, there are small groups seated in comfortable chairs, laptops spread out sharing ideas on how they deal with particular issues. I found it interesting to watch how they interacted shared and solved problems.

Of course, it was not all small groups. The "classrooms" were almost always filled with presentors keeping the attention of the attendees with interesting, well planned sessions and a few were filled with some animation to keep everyone smiling. I did sit in on a couple…after all I did spend years in the classroom. The discussions were truly like a foreign language to me but I could see the interest on those in attendance was at a high level, the presentations were smooth and the opportunity for questions from the attendees made their experience complete.

There is a strong presence of vendors presenting their products. I particularly enjoyed chatting with the folks at Palm…they have definitely made a srong presence in the "Windows" arena and it showed with the huge crowds gathering at their booth.

When I first arrived at the Palm booth, I had to wait quite a while before I could chat with them…they had attracted quite an audience.

I enjoyed chatting with the folks from Palm and the folks from National Instruments. Both, Palm and National Instruments, gave the best "demos", were excited about their products and transfered that excitement in their presentations….

Of course, as you wander around a conference like this, you always run into someone you know or have met in the past. While at CES in January, I met Dale Coffing and I was pleased to see him again. Dale is always at the forefront of anything that is Windows Mobile giving great presentations, demonstrations and hands on help to those in attendance.

So this has been a cool experience for me to watch all that was happening, meet new folks, laugh with some old friends and somehow attempt to absorb all that was going on. The folks at Microsoft did an incredible job in putting this event together…a massive undertaking!

If I were to pick one thing that impressed me the most, I would have to say that the HANDS ON LABS were just incredible. This was truly TechEd 2006!

Jack Cook (2689 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook