WWPC Bound--Are You?

F

or the third year in a row, I'll be heading to the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. This year, it's in Denver. Last year's event was in Boston and, except for the deplorable lack of lunches, extremely worthwhile.

We are dedicated Microsoft partners, and I always enjoy meeting and networking with other partners. The sessions at these things are good, but the networking is great.

With that said, the tools they give the partners to do networking always suck. It's difficult to use the networking tools and the "tables" are always booked. As John pointed out, their various tools can't even agree on time zones. And, of course, I had to create another user name and password (oh, and a screen name, too--what is this? MySpace? Am I fourteen? I don't need a screen name to hide behind, I'm trying to actually meet business partners).

This year, they've added a new tool: "blogs." And, once again, they've mucked it all up. Rather than create an RSS aggregator (just like PDC did in 2005), they've created their own blogging tool that allows you to have a blog hosted on and only available from their site. It's like someone who has no idea what blogging is about decided that they should have blogs. Guys: many of us already have blogs. We don't want to have some new, hidden-from-the-world, proprietary-software, blogging platform. By the way: I did create a blog on their site (it's called "I Already Have a Blog") and I'll be crossposting WPC-related material there).

Networking problems aside, I expect to have a great time in Denver. On Tuesday, I'll go to INVESCO for the US party (I really hope that they continue Margo Day's tradition of the high-five tunnel on the way in!). On Wednesday the 12th, John and I will be attending the Partner Awards (and, with any luck, picking up our Innovation ISV Partner of the Year Award).

So, with that said, are you going? If so, want to meet up? Who do you think the "Classic eighties band" will be?

Technorati tags: wwpc