Today, thousands of developers from around the world descended upon San Francisco for Microsoft’s flagship developer conference – Build. Although the conference doesn’t officially kick off until tomorrow, there was still plenty going on to keep the nerd in me occupied! :-)
Shortly after checking into my hotel room and grabbing some lunch (at Super Duper Burgers – yummy!) I participated in a mini focus group at the Microsoft offices near the Moscone Center. Along with one other enterprise architect (there were other groups before/after us as well) we spent about an hour and a half answering questions for the research group giving us a chance to provide them with the experiences and insights that we see in our day-to-day jobs. There were some great questions covering some of the most common architectural challenges being faced today (e.g. mobile, cloud, “big data”, etc.). I enjoyed providing my perspective on some of these daily challenges but, more so, I enjoyed hearing the perspectives of the other enterprise architect in the room. I hope the research group gained some beneficial information from the time they spent with us. Regardless, I know I gained some knowledge while I was there. Score 1 for me before Build even starts! :-)
Immediately following the focus group, I headed over to the Moscone Center to register for the conference and pick up my badge. The registration was quick and simple and the only items provided to the attendees was a:
- Conference badge
- Conference T-shirt
- Conference session guide
- A $50 discount card for the Microsoft Store (for purchase of $500 or greater)
I’ll leave it up to you to speculate on whether the lack of a conference bag/backpack is indicative of any potential giveaways during tomorrow’s keynote :-)
Next, we headed over to the DVLUP Meet-Up where we had some great food and drinks and had fun tweeting with the #Commit2DVLUP hashtag :-) There was a great turnout of enthusiastic developers and we were provided with some great SWAG! Thanks DVLUP!
To round out the evening, we headed over to the Microsoft Store to take a look at all the great Windows 8.1 tablets and Windows Phones currently available. I was really partial to the Lumia Icon and would love to see a comparable device come to AT&T. I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see. Until then, I’ll continue rockin’ my Lumia 920!
We also got a demo of a MakerBot 3D printer. Although I’ve seen the results of various 3D printers over the past year, this was the first time I spent the time to watch a set of chain links be printed up close. I’m not sure I have a legitimate use for a 3D printer just yet, but I would definitely have fun printing out some toys for my kids!
At this point, I’m ready to call it a successful day and can’t wait to see what the opening keynote brings us tomorrow as well as all the breakout sessions that will follow.