look, it could probably be a lot of things. It could be the fact that my plane was delayed, so I didn’t finally arrive at my hotel in KL until around 1am. It could be the early start to get some work done before the conference. It could be the tired driver who I had to converse with for over an hour so he didn’t fall asleep on the highway and kill both of us. It could be my sore feet. It could be that my second session was over-full, so they turned away half the people in line including me. It could be that I screwed around with my wireless settings in the much hyped “Wireless Lounge” for a good 20 minutes before I asked a staff member only to be told, “oh sorry the wireless doesn’t work”. It could be that the other wireless internet - courtesy of the convention centre itself - is AU$40/day.  It could be that the “internet cafe” in the exhibitor hall can only work with the preconfigured laptops, which don’t have such neccisities as Flash Player or Acrobat Reader, and you have to stand up to use it. It could be that the Keynote was boring and long.

All I know for sure is that I have declared Microsoft Tech.Ed to be crap.

When I’ve attended Novell’s Brainshare in several countries around the world, I’ve always been a bit disappointed. Perhaps it goes with the territory. But Microsoft could learn a few things from the Brainshare model.

1. Internet MUST be wireless and available everywhere. It also must be free. Add it to the attendees cost, or better yet, get a sponsor for it.
2. People must be able to sit places besides the floor when not dining or in-session.
3. In the lunch room, “finished” place settings must be removed and replaced with clean ones. Otherwise if you’re late, the whole room has empty tables of dirty cutlery and you can’t find anywhere with a clean napkin, cutlery and/or glass of water to save your life.
4. Letting attendees pre-register for sessions means that you know for sure what session you’re going to, even if it’s full, rather than being turned away from one only to then be turned away at the next as well.

Ungh. Anyway, since there was only one more session today that I was interested in, and considering it was almost definitely going to be overfull, I decided to come back to the hotel and sit down, use the free internet, and have an early night. Hopefully tomorrow will go better.

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