The Moth

1. SESSIONS
This year I was presenting 4 breakout sessions on my own and was also part of a panel session with four other speakers. A huge thank you to all of you that attended my sessions and in particular to those of you that filled in the feedback forms. I read every single comment and below are the results of your voting, in the order I presented throughout the week:

Three numbers per session representing speaker's Knowledge, Presentation Skills and Quality (range is 1-9 where 9 is high).

TLA201 VisualStudio – 8.41, 8.31, 7.87 (resources here).
MED202 WindowsMobile – 8.46, 8.32, 7.85 (resources here).
MED304 CompactFramework – 8.49, 8.33, 8.09 (resources here).
WIN312 WindowsVista – 8.66, 8.54, 8.31 (resources here).

These numbers are not that different to my session results from last year so it sounds like I am not improving much. I hope next year I will do better i.e. eliminate those two pesky 7.8x numbers and replace them with 8.something!

2. SOCIALISING
In addition to having a session every single day and almost every day some kind of "lunch meeting", I also kept my evenings busy by managing to attend: the welcome drinks reception, the MVP party, the MSP party, the UK country drinks, a night out with MS UK DPE colleagues and the speaker's dinner/party. I also participated in two book signing events at one of which Andy "helpfully" brought a celebratory bottle of champagne. So, in hindsight, maybe I should do all my presentations from now on whilst being hangover since it apparently makes no difference ;).

3. MEDIA
It wasn't all alcohol and presentations though; there were some "media" activities too. At some point expect to see on channel8 an interview I gave to two MSPs. I also turned the table round with Dave by interviewing him on his outstanding performance at Tech Ed – expect to see that on the NxtGenUG podcast series. There is 30 seconds on us signing the book on the Day 3 Wrap (start at 01:09) on the virtual side (or save as the wmv). Also on the virtual side there is a 4-minute chat between me and Mike on Visual Studio & .NET Framework 3.5 – Top Features (or save as the wmv). Finally, since they had both me and Mike in front of a camera, they decided to record a longer (10') chat we had on the same topic, this time for VisrtualTechEd (stream it or save as the wmv).

4. TECHNICAL NEWS FOR THOSE OF YOU NOT THERE
Phew! Now I think I'll get some rest and sleep for the next 24 hours and then compile for the Flash all the announcements and product downloads from Tech Ed. I hope you are all looking forward to this week's issue...