Microsoft MVP Global Summit 2013 November: Day 1


Monday, November 18

Seattle has some rain in store for us this week and it did not disappoint. The morning started with a hearty continental buffet over here at the Hilton Bellevue hotel where MVPs were clearly gearing up for the long day ahead.

MVPs heading over to MSCC

After wrapping up, I headed over the Microsoft Conference Center in Building 33 to begin my Monday sessions. First up was BR404 - What's New in Windows Azure AD presented by Vittorio Bertocci, Principal Program Manager in the Windows Azure Active Directory team in charge of the Developer Experience. I was fascinated by the upcoming improvements

Following the BR404 session, I headed over to building 122 to attend the rest of the sessions on my agenda for the day:

BR286 - SQL Session 2-ALL: Information Management and Data Stewardship
BR287 - SQL Session 3-BI: Under the hood of Power BI
BR288 - SQL Session 4-BI: PowerBI IT Admin Experience

While I can't comment on the details of the sessions, these mostly focused on upcoming functionality in the Power Query and Power BI stack of self-service BI applications for on-premise and cloud data. These sessions went into the architecture, concepts, and some practical use cases illustrating the capabilities of the stack and some challenges surrounding the development process.

On the way out for some fresh air between sessions, I saw a few MVPs at the Tech Link center. Microsoft Information Technology (Microsoft IT) Tech Link centers provide Microsoft employees and vendors with a walk-in location where they receive face-to-face troubleshooting support from the Microsoft IT group's (MSIT) personnel.

Tech Link Center
Finalizing the day, it was time to return to the hotel to drop off my computer and head over to the MVP Reception at the Hyatt Regency. At the bus pick up station, I had a chance to meet and greet with a few SharePoint Server MVPs from Canada. I took the opportunity to talk about a Business Portal deployment for a customer in Ireland and got a few potential solutions to the issue we are trying to resolve.

Alain Lord, and Vlad Catrinescu
The networking opportunities presented by the Microsoft MVP Global Summit are unique and allow most of us to "compare notes".

At the Hyatt, I met up with Microsoft Dynamics GP MVPs Leslie Vail and John Lowther. Leslie had just arrived into town so we went straight to the registration desk to get her set up. Following her registration, we all headed over to the Microsoft Store at Bellevue Square to take advantage of our MVP-only Microsoft Surface 2 offer.

Back at the Hyatt, it was time for some R&R and socializing.

MVP Reception at Grand Ballroom
Our group consisting of Jivtesh Singh, Belinda Allen, Leslie Vail, John Lowther and I found a table outside of the ballroom where we sat to have a few drinks and eat some food. We were later joined by Dynamics AX MVPs, most of who we had met at the Dynamic Communities summit in Tampa and past Convergence events.

Dynamics MVPs Meeting of the Minds
Joris de Gruyter (AX), Murray Fife (AX), Jose Antonio Estevan (AX),
Jivtesh Singh (GP), Belinda Allen (GP), and Leslie Vail (GP)

The group got even larger after Dynamics AX MVPs Andre Arnaud de Calavon (Netherlands) and Tommy Skaue (Norway) showed up - both returning from the Microsoft Store. Between product trash talk, jokes, laughs, and at times, some deep technical discussions, the night went by pretty quick, so it was time to return to my hotel.

On the way out, I caught up with my MVP Lead, Melissa Travers, who gracefully accepted my request for a picture. MVP Leads are our direct connection to Microsoft and they keep each one of us MVPs plugged into Microsoft organization, product news, and MVP activities overall. They are an important part in making the MVP Award Program a success.

MVP Lead Melissa Travers and I for a selfie

Tomorrow is a special day here at the MVP Global Summit: for the first time ever, the Microsoft Dynamics GP Product Management team and their MVPs will have an entire day of product group interactions (breakout sessions) featuring Microsoft Dynamics GP NDA content. Fargo has sent two of its best too: Michael Hammond and Daryl Anderson who will be hosting the sessions.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

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