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Tech⋅Ed 2008 IT Professionals Week — Photos and Memories
As you might have heard, the Train Signal Team was at Tech⋅Ed this year.
This was my first time at Tech⋅Ed and I have to say, I had a blast! It was a great learning experience and an excellent opportunity to meet other IT Professionals.
I’m already looking forward to next year’s Tech⋅Ed, but right now let me tell you a little bit about this year’s event.
We stayed at the Renaissance Resort at SeaWorld in Orlando. Below is a picture of our hotel, and believe it or not — this is the inside of the hotel.
On the far left you can see a bar and a restaurant – we have some good memories of delicious food and tasty drinks from there! On the right is another bar/restaurant that was centrally located. I don’t think we got a chance to go there though, but maybe next time.
Between the two bars you can see a pond with a little man made waterfall that was very beautiful. All the trees, the water, balconies, and the restaurants and bars (that are actually buildings within a building) made you feel as though you were outside of the hotel, in a beautiful resort.
This picture was taken from the glass elevator that overlooked the inside of this nice hotel.
The photo below shows Coach Culbertson, enjoying his first of many coffees. As you can see he looks pretty happy, but this is only our first day "on the job" in Orlando, and and I’m guessing his smile is a little fake. What he’s actually thinking about is taking another sip of his morning java.
The bench he is sitting on was our meeting spot. Coach usually got there first, followed by me, then Scott. And after a few phone calls and threats of leaving, Gary and Iman finally show up.
And here they are! The water bottle in Gary’s hands means he enjoyed a few of those delicious cocktails last night.
And even though Iman looks well rested, don’t let him fool you — he was out enjoying himself with the rest of the Train Signal team last night, and we know how to have fun!
The photo above shows what we saw when we walked into the South building of the massive Orange County Convention Center. Here we were walking in through the side door coming from the parking lot.
There were hundreds of computers with internet access set up here for all attendees to use throughout the day — a thoughtful addition from Microsoft.
The bonus: all vending machines were open and free of charge to anyone. Other tasty snacks including fresh fruit, chips, cookies and drinks were also provided throughout the day.
Above is the end of day one; we were pooped. Scott is walking with Iman here, and Gary just ran out of the shot. He’s a cookie fanatic and was holding at least 20 cookies; he ran away because he didn’t want me to have any evidence. But I don’t need it, you believe me, don’t you?
Here’s a picture of our booth. It’s nothing fancy, just a way for us to showcase our training products. I admit we didn’t put as much effort into it as some other companies did, but we did get lots of great ideas and we’re ready to make big improvements for next year. After all, this was our first time at Tech⋅Ed.
In the photo you can see Iman and Gary (and Scott’s arm) all ready for the visitors to start coming. This year we were giving away our free Windows Server 2008 introductory training videos, created by Coach Culbertson.
I bet at least 90% of all attendees received a free copy of the training, and the other 10% must have missed our booth, so there was not much we could do about that. It was a lot of fun meeting everyone and talking to people from all over the country.
Besides talking to everyone and giving away our free training, we also had a computer screen that displayed our different training courses so that our visitors could get a feel for our training style.
The shot below shows the view from the inside of our booth. Coach is on the right and Gary with a camcorder on the left.
The conference center was a busy place and our days were packed full of learning and talking — as well as standing and walking. We were on our feet for the most part of each day, but when we needed a rest we came here …
These red bean bags were amazingly comfortable. This whole area was very cool — you could sit down and chill, eat a snack, hop on internet, or take a short nap if you wanted to — at any time throughout the day.
I need to thank whoever came up with this idea! It was so nice to be able to sit down and relax on a comfy bean bag after standing and walking all day.
Here we are, once again, leaving the convention center for the day. We were all so sad to leave; we wanted to stay for few hours more but at last it was time to go … to Hard Rock Café in Orlando!
Here’s a nice group shot of the whole Train Signal Tech⋅Ed Team.
Starting from left is Iman who is having a nice ice cream sundae. In the white shirt, pointing at Iman is Gary sitting next to Scott. I’m sitting across the table from Scott next to Coach and his wife Kim.
This was a fun night and a great way to relax after an exciting Tech⋅Ed week. We enjoyed some good food, good drinks and a few laughs.
We also got pretty silly, and someone told our waiter that it was Gary’s birthday (which wasn’t true, but pretty funny). Next thing we know, Gary is up on stage and everyone is cheering him on to dance the Macarena. Happy Birthday Gary!
And see you all at next year’s Tech⋅Ed!
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