Well the first day of the Berlin SharePoint Conference is over and I'm thankfully heading to bed quite soon. Last night I went out with a few other SharePoint MVP's and Microsoft Program Managers to try some traditional German food. Check out the size of the beer glasses!
It was really nice to catch up with Renaud and some of the other MVPs. I got up relatively early this morning, ate breakfast then headed over to the conference centre. I popped into the key note for a short while and it was packed! I didn't hang around in it for too long as it was stuff I'd seen many times before. Combined Knowledge are one of the premium sponsors of the conference and their stand is right outside the doors of one of the main halls. It's kind of become the unofficial meeting place for the UK delegates which is good as there's somewhere to go when you fancy a chat to someone.
Steve Smith and Brett Lonsdate both had talks on today. I popped into both to take pictures for them and record a litle bit of their session. They both had really good numbers in them. I might be making a brief appearance on stage on Wednesday with Mike Fitzmaurice to demo BDC Meta Man although that's not been confirmed yet.
There has been real issues with the Hands On Labs. Unfortunately only 8 pcs are working at the moment so my 2 hour stint as a helper didn't really lead to many questions! The entire room of machines should be back up by tomorrow though so future stints should proove to be a bit more interesting.
We've met up with some interesting people today. A few have recognised me from my blog, and a few stand there going 'Nick Swan, Nick Swan, where do I know that name from....?'
As soon as I mention BDC Meta Man everybody realises!
Tomorrow at the evening party, Rob Gray has organised a VIP UK Area for all the UK delegates. I've posted about it on SUGUK so pop over there to have a read of it.
Only real bad thing, people are allowed to smoke inside the conference centre! We're all going to be going home on Thursday smelling like ashtrays. :-(