I tend to look forward to January 1st each year, as this is my MVP Award renewal date. Woke up this morning and received the following message.
Thank you Microsoft, thank you to my wonderful MVP lead, and thanks to all of you. My goal this year is to try to do more blogging, and with Windows 10, Windows Server v.Next, and more on the way, that should be a relatively easy goal to achieve.
If you are a first-time Microsoft Most Valuable Professional or this is your first time attending the MVP Global Summit in Seattle, then this post is for you.
This is my fourth year as an MVP and will be my third time attending Summit. I wanted to provide my tips and tricks to those who have not attended before.
First rule of summit – don’t talk about summit. But for real, remember your NDA. Don’t tweet, blog, Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare, or Snapchat anything you learn during summit week. There may be times that it is okay, but err on the side of caution and ask first.
If you’re arriving in Seattle, and you are looking for reliable transportation to / from the hotel and airport, I would recommend Shuttle Express. I have used them since 2008 and the service has always been superb. With gratuity (tip) you are looking at about $50 for round trip service.
When registration opened you might have heard some talk about the Hyatt. Why is the Hyatt so important? A) it’s centrally located to Lincoln Square / Bellevue Square, B) it’s a large hotel so a lot of activities take place here, and c) the rooms are really nice. If you missed out on getting a room at the Hyatt this year, remember, there is always next year.
In most years, registration has taken place across the street from the Hyatt at the Westin Lincoln Square so I would guess that registration will be here again as well. There are also side sessions and other activities that can take place here so keep an eye on the session builder tool to know where to go.
Once you get on the Microsoft campus, it’s like being transported to a whole new world. Yes, it’s a corporate campus, but there is a variety of building design, style, and tons of cool amenities. If you’ve never been on campus before, navigating can seem a bit daunting. I spent two summers in high school working at Microsoft on the main campus and I still didn’t entirely know my way around. But never fear! Here’s a PDF of the Microsoft Campus Map that should come in handy.
If you get lost or just want to know how to get to a different building, feel free to look for anyone from the event services team (typically red shirts in prior years), or you can go to any building receptionist and they can page a shuttle for you to get you to where you want to go.
While you are on campus, make sure to visit building 92. Building 92 is where the Microsoft Visitor Center (really cool museum displays and hands on stuff) and Microsoft Company Store (logo’ed gear and access to the holy grail of goodies that are provided with a VIP pass from the MVP program team) are. If you are an international MVP, make sure you take advantage of your company store reward, as you will not be able to redeem it online through the online store.
As far as touristy things go, here are some of my recommendations. Bear in mind that I’m not a big tourist but there are my personal favorites.
This morning I woke up to some New Year’s cheer. Microsoft has named me a Most Valuable Professional in the Windows Home Server category for 2012.
Dear Tom Ziegmann,
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2012 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Windows Home Server technical communities during the past year.
I’d like to say thank you to the Home and Small Business Server team for this award, as well as the MVP team for everything they do, as well as congratulate my fellow returning MVPs and welcome any newbies.
(Disclosure: Like most things Microsoft related, I am attending TechEd as a guest of the Microsoft Corporation. Flight, hotel, meals, and conference pass have been provided by Microsoft.)
I’m writing this post from 10,000 feet above the ground using GoGo Inflight Internet as I fly from Phoenix to Atlanta. (So cool!) I’m on my way to Atlanta for Microsoft’s TechEd North America conference.
TechEd is one of the premier conferences for IT professionals and developers alike. Obviously since it is being put on by Microsoft, it focuses on Microsoft technologies. This year, Robert Wahbe and Jason Zander will be keynoting the event and as my friend Mary Jo Foley has noted on her blog, we’ll probably see some cool stuff around SQL Server, Visual Studio (I hear there is a Kinect + VS demo!), and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some more info about the future of System Center and its role in facilitating public / private cloud interaction as well as management and consolidation in the datacenter.
I’ll be spending most of my time in sessions this week and will do my best to update everyone with the highlights. Also, I’ll be bringing a preview of what will be seen at the Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals this summer.
In the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to take a moment to announce that during the 2011 Global MVP Summit, Microsoft gave me an HP ProLiant Microserver.
The HP ProLiant Microserver is designed for the small business space, and is meant to be a first server for those that have no real IT infrastructure or are using a peer-to-peer network. The Microserver has a very low price point of only $349 for the base model with no OS.
The server supports RAID 0 and 1, and for those that want remote management, an optional iLO card can be purchased for an additional fee.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be installing Windows MultiPoint Server 2011, Windows Home Server 2011 RC, and Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials RC to test the software and the performance of the ProLiant Microserver. I may have just found my replacement for my aging HP MediaSmart EX475 server.
Thanks for the server, Microsoft!
I’ll be in Seattle February 23rd-March 3rd for Microsoft Student Insider stuff and the 2011 Microsoft MVP Summit. I’ll be taking my new SLR digital camera with me and taking lots of pictures, so look for those over the course of those eight days.
Please join me in welcoming the following to the Student Insider program for 2011:
MVP summit content is covered under the Non-Disclosure Agreement, so I’m not able to talk about what I’ll be doing there, other than to say that I’ll be meeting with the Home and Small Business Server team at various points through out the week. If you have any questions that you want me to try to answer, feel free to leave them in the comments.
2011 sure has gotten off to a great start! I woke up yesterday to an e-mail in my inbox congratulating me on becoming an MVP for Windows Home Server.
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2011 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Windows Home Server technical communities during the past year.
It is an incredible honor to join the ranks alongside the other Windows Home Server MVPs, and I look forward to helping the community in the year ahead.
Tom on Tech 