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June 13, 2006

Boston, Day Three: The Good, The Bad And The Funny

Tuesday was my third here in Boston, and I've now spent enough time at TechEd to be able to talk a bit about the conference. So, for your reading pleasure, I hereby present some observations/thoughts - the good, the bad, and the funny. In order:

The Good

• Professionalism. The conference is very well-run. The people who put this thing together have clearly done it a whole lotta times, and have taken pains to reduce the stress on the conference participants, in ways both big and small (and hey, when you're managing a six-day shindig for 12,000 people, that's a big deal). For instance, TechEd runs bus shuttles between the "official" hotels and the conference center on a continuous basis. This means attendees don't need to deal with taxis or private cars to get in and out - and is just more efficient, a smarter way to do it. On the other end of the spectrum, each attendee is given a pouch that can be slung around the neck. On the front is your attendee card and name (along with a nice pen); on the back is a "mini guide" to the conference sessions, a map of the halls, and so on. This saves people from looking too dazed and lost as the show goes on.
• Facilities. The Boston Convention Center itself is bright, airy, comfy, wonderful. It's very modern, very clean, well-laid-out, and, again, details are good. They've got lots of nice lounges, for instance, for ducking out and checking mail (or doing some networking); they've also invested in good chairs for the attendees in the conference sessions themselves (which, when you're spending a lot of quality time on your butt, is something to be very grateful for). There are PC kiosks everywhere - banks and banks and banks of them - that let attendees check in with their home office(s) between sessions.
• Sessions (Length). The sessions themselves are the right length - 75 minutes. This allows for the presentation of complex material without feeling rushed, but also keeps things close enough to an hour that attendees' attention spans don't get too tried.
• Breaks. There's a half-hour break between sessions. This is a Good Move, as it gives people time to rehydrate, check e-mail, chat with other attendees, use the facilities and stroll to their next session without feeling time pressure.
• Energy. The crowd energy is great. People are buzzing about the stuff they're learning.
• Sessions (Variety). The available sessions are on a very wide range of topics, from a focus on business problems to deep-dive technical. Since you can jump from one track to another without problem, there's always about three things I'd like to see in any given time slot.
• Diversity. We have lots of international attendees. This makes the conference center sound like the UN.
• Coffee. In addition to the free bottled water and Diet Pepsi, they're serving Starbucks. Thank God.

The Bad

• WiFi. The wireless Internet access sucks. I imagine the poor, poor network is being over-stressed by the digital denizens of the conference, but - geez. It takes my Tablet a good five minutes (five minutes!) to negotiate a connection and get an IP address, and once I'm up the service is sloooooow. Like, "you have time to meet someone, fall in love, start a family and die while waiting for your e-mail" kind of slow. (Did I mention it's slow? It's slow.)
• Food. The food selection is ... bad. Breakfasts and lunches seem to be catered by Satan's Conference Catering Company - inedible bits of overcharred, undercooked, over-boiled or over-oiled ... everything, from the veggies (they do have vegetarian options, which gets points) to the meats. As bad as the "real" food is, though, the between-session snacks are infintely worse - a dizying array of sugary crap that makes you believe Willy Wonka and Veruca Salt are lurking 'round the corner. We're talking brownies, of course, and cookies, but also candy bars and - get this - Hostess fruit pies. Remember those? The ones that have the bad, fake lemon and cherry flavor? Deep-fried and covered in frosting? 5,000 calories apiece? We've got em. And yes, there are one or two lonely apples in a barrel here and there, but c'mon ...
• Narrative. I don't know what it is, exactly, about Microsoft presentations, but we're frequently terrible about storytelling. Terrible, terrible, terrible. While there are some notable exceptions, I'm shocked at how many presentations I've seen so far that jump the shark in the middle. Look, it's not rocket science, right? When you're showing off product, you do the following:
  1. Start by explaining the Problem that faces the audience.
  2. Explain (or show) how the Problem has been solved in the past. This undoubtedly involves much groaning and eye-rolling from the audience, who have cut themselves on this particular piece of razor wire one too many times already, thank you.
  3. Explain (or show) how the Problem is now so much easier to solve with Version 15 of Microsoft XYZ For Enterprise Architects, or whatever. Audience gasps in surprise and squeals in delight as they see that they, too, might be able to pull cash out of their wallet and give it to you in exchange for repeating their previous razor-wire-fraught behavior.
  4. Say, "And now I'll walk you through the steps involved in doing this yourself" and begin the Demo. In the Demo, refer back to points 1 - 3, as needed, to keep the audience focused on what you're doing and why it is going to make them happy.
  5. Complete the Demo, recap 1 - 3, remind the audience that the Problem is no longer a Problem, and thank the audience for their time.
  6. Spread arms in an open-person gesture and say, "Any questions?"
  Without conscious effort and attention on 1 - 6, the presenter will likely skip through 1 - 3, jump right into 4, and begin Geeking Like Crazy, at which point the audience, already mildly lost, will furrow its collective brow and, after five minutes of trying to follow the indecipherable flurry of dialog boxes, Start menu summoning, and IE-window-resizing, will just say, "aw, the hell with it" and check out. Five minutes later, they've got a WiFi signal on their laptops and they're surfing.

  This is happening, way, way too much at this show.

The Funny

• Restrooms. There are a lot of guys at this show - plenty of women, of course, but the Y-chromosome skew is notable. What this means, in practical terms, is that there is always a line at the men's room - and it's pretty long, especially right before or after a session. Ladies, on the other hand, can just stroll in and out of their side of the loo. After years of listening to women friends of mine bitch - loudly - about having to wait in line to use the bathroom at rock concerts, sports games, theme parks (oh, hell - everywhere), I can say that a) I know what you're talking about, and b) it's pretty funny to see the tables turned on a bunch 'o geeks.
• Industry Cattiness. Most of the big tech names are exhibiting their wares here, from Cisco to HP to Intel and so on. Everyone at the booths is friendly and smiling, positive, and nary a bad word is spoken about competitors. The lunchroom, however, is another story - I wound up at a table alongside a couple of guys from Intel who were ragging on Microsoft (and Office specifically!) for a good five minutes or so, at which point one of them, having said his piece, paused, took a drink from his bottle of orange juice, turned his attention to me, and said, "So ... what do you do?" (Yeah, his reaction was pretty priceless.)
• Borg-ification. Every other person has a Treo and a Bluetooth headset to go with it. This makes TechEd look like some kind of Borg convention, and also makes it impossible to tell crazy people (loudly talking to themselves) from salespeople (loudly talking to someone else) at 20 feet.
• Penguins. Microsoft people are all wearing "the uniform" - dark blue shirt, light slacks. While this does add a certain kind of (good) consistency to the show (it looks professional, and makes it easy for attendees to know who to get help from), it also looks like a tech version of "March of the Penguins." We just need some Morgan Freeman narration, and we're good.

Did I mention my brain is full? (And it's only Tuesday? And the show runs 'til Friday?) Four sessions a day will do that to ya. Sheesh.

Posted by Gavin Shearer at June 13, 2006 7:13 PM. Posted to MSFT | Travel.

Comments

Posted by: Carlos Alberto Pinto Peixoto Bastos Santos at June 16, 2006 6:38 AM

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