Convention Season

Convention season is upon us. I know that conventions happen throughout the year, but it seems like April is when things kick into high gear.

As anyone who has been in IT for more than a month can tell you, there are so many incredible opportunities to get out there and network, learn, and see what is heading down the pipeline. It can really be overwhelming both to the senses and the budget.

The Head Geeks try very hard to find opportunities to meet up with customers, fellow thwack-izens, and like-minded IT Professionals. But like you, there are only so many days in a month and dollars in the budget.

I took a quick poll of the other Geeks to find out:

  1. Which shows we are GOING to be attending this year.
  2. Which ones we know we SHOULD be attending, but can’t due to other constraints.
  3. Which ones we WISH we could attend, even if it’s a little off the beaten path.

Here’s what I’d like from you: In the comments, let us know which shows YOU are going to be attending, and which ones you would like to see US attend next year. That will help us justify our decisions (and budget!) and (hopefully) meet up with you!

Attending:

Tom: PASS Summit, VMworld, Ignite

Kong: MS Ignite, VMworld, SpiceWorld Austin, Philadelphia VMUG USERCON, and Carolina VMUG USERCON

Patrick: Cisco Live, Ignite

Leon: Cisco Live

Should Attend:

Tom: Spiceworks, VMworld (Barcelona)

Kong: “Are you insane?!?! Did you see what I’m already going to?”

Patrick: VMworld

Leon: Interop, Ignite, SpiceWorld

Wish We Could Attend:

Tom: SXSW, AWS re:Invent 2015

Kong: AWS re:Invent

Patrick: RSA, AWS re:Invent 2015

Leon: Interop, DefCon, RSA,

Like I said, let us know in comments where YOU are going to be, and we’ll start to make plans to be there the next time around.

  • In the... (it will show you are really old category).....

    My daughter, in first grade at the time, went to school one day (circa 1986...) and all the kids were talking about their Apple II's and MAC's and that they could do this and that.... She raised her hand and said, my dad's computer in work is so smart that when he calls it on the phone it knows who he is and calls him back. This story was relayed to me by her teacher a week later at parent conferences. She said there was DEAD SILENCE after that. She asked if what she said was true, and I explained we had dial-back modems..... The picture of the Hayes modem made me remember that one....

    (BTW.... same daughter runs a very successful blog today...)

  • Awesome! I had that same one as well. I also had a 300-baud acoustic coupler that my uncle gave me to tinker with if I wanted to. When I got in trouble and had my modem taken away, I would sometimes sneak out the acoustic coupler to get online while my parents weren't home.

    Eventually I saved up my money and bought myself a 2400 baud internal modem, so Mom couldn't take it away.emoticons_laugh.png

  • Those were the gold standard back in the day.

    Then came the 2400, 9600, 14.4K, 28.8k, and then 56k.  As long as it was a Hayes you were good.

  • Here's a PIC of my first modem.  A Hayes smartmodem with a blazing speed of 1200 baud.  More than two decades later, somehow this modem does not seem so smart.  emoticons_devil.png

    Hayes-Smartmodem-1200.jpg

  • I attended Cisco Live recently in Melbourne. We had a free ticket so I got to go and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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