EnergizeIT 2008

It was my first time going to a Microsoft event  and I had no idea what to expect while going there. I reached the Toronto Congress Centre right on the 9 hour mark and I was somewhat surprise to notice in the parking lot the presence of colourful teenagers, some dress strangely to my taste.I asked myself if I had come to right event or did I screw on the date again as is usually my case.It turned out that the Anime North show were being held in a different Hall.

After a quick registration, a bunch of promo materials and a t shirts were given to me, and I proceeded to the main conference hall. Nice set up for a tech event. Dim lighting with the smoke effects, and a round podium. Surprised....at 9.30am sharp the event start and I was still wondering if the speaker was a Microsoft employee or a rock star. Loud music...club light play....an energized audience...no way that was a tech event.The event planner scored a big point there with the big heads from Redmond.

There were some speeches and demo about the latest addition in the Windows LIVE repertoire and it was nicely demo by two rangers dressed employee.The interaction with the audience was appreciated and we later learned that the demo was also part of a competition among Microsoft employees.Some awards were also distributed for the innovation in IT using MS products.I personally liked the one awarded to a developer who created a tool in MRI to help in the early detection of Cancer.The rest of the group winners were from Government of Canada :-).....

After a long speech by a VP from Redmond, there was a presentation competition by MS employees.The second presentation were about developing games and the presentation were quite lame. The last group had a rock star entry. Dressed like hard rockers, the were loud in showing their Guitar Hero talent. The award were finally awarded to the Rangers group I mentioned above. Break for lunch.

Lunch was crude. Burgers!!!!  the ice cream was good though.

The 2nd part of the afternoon was more relaxing and engaging. I decided to be in the PHP with windows sessions but turned out not to be my cup of tea. Embarrassingly I left the room and headed to the Consumers track. There  i was more comfortable with the subjects being talked and happened to be my pet project: WINDOWS HOME SERVER. I had to admit that i felt a little bit proud to know all the topics the MS guy was talking about and also all the answers from the questions from the members of the public.

I decided to stay with that group till the end of the track.