The topic of how to improve Tech Ed (Australia) came up today from various avenues. Me being me, I’ve decided to blog my comments/feedback.
- More in-depth sessions (make them longer if need be)! Potentially half of the attendees work with the technology on a daily basis, we don’t need the ‘fluff sessions’ as much..
- More ad-hoc (not aligned strictly to one track) sessions and activities (where do XNA, Robotics Studio, Windows Mobile Development, Performance Point, Parallel Extensions, Software Testing, Accessibility, Internationalisation etc fit into the current track taxonomy?) but more in depth than the cabana or chalkboard sessions
- Less marketing (last year felt like one big marketing spiel) or less‘general overview’ sessions (or call them what they are)
- Consider expanding the ‘Q & A with the experts’ into streams, e.g. ‘Q & A with the […Web …TFS …SharePoint …SQL] experts’
- Avoid scheduling all the best sessions side-by-side (ok, this doesn’t happen by design, I realise that)
- Avoid topic duplication (there were at least two competing WPF presentations last year) or at least ensure the two sessions have different outcomes (for differentiation purposes)
- More delegate interaction activities (how about a mini-imagine cup competition held during the conference?)
- We love the giveaways!
- More Luke Drumm
- Guitar Hero ‘rock off’ competition (or, more Xbox stuff)
- Distributed Computing, Microsoft Surface or a Microsoft Research backed exhibition/demonstration – i.e. show us something cool from Redmond (and abroad)!
- Steve Ballmer gives Australia it’s own ‘Developers, Developers, Developers’ speech
- Corporate store prices on Microsoft gear 🙂
- Three words: real product launch (launch something in Australia as a world first.. perhaps give away free copies too)
- ‘Most geekiest dressed’ award to the most geeky delegate (as judged by an imported special guest)
- ‘Hot Load/Load Fest’ – latest CTP and Beta software available on the Tech Ed LAN
