Orlando is really the best location for this type of crowd. There are very few bottlenecks (if any) at the Orlando convention center. I’ve always had a stellar experience there.
Rod Trent From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Michael Niehaus Sent: Friday, September 30, 2016 9:54 AM To: mssms@lists.myitforum.com Subject: RE: [mssms] Horrible food at Ignite As announced yesterday, we move on to Orlando for next year. They have more escalators in their convention center, but like all convention centers there are still bottlenecks. (Pre-register now to get the best hotels ☺) And they have the same challenges with feeding 20,000+ attendees. (Breakfast was pretty good, the one lunch I had was fine.) -MTN From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Marable, Mike Sent: Friday, September 30, 2016 7:23 AM To: mssms@lists.myitforum.com Subject: RE: [mssms] Horrible food at Ignite Very good points, Michael. The complaints I’ve been hearing about this year’s Ignite are the similar to some of those from last year’s event. Food and crowd management seem to be the top concerns. I have not heard a single complaint about the content. Even though this is a Microsoft event, there are 2 different companies working here. The content coming from Microsoft, and the infrastructure provided by the venue. The issues that are top on the list are tied to the venue and the company managing the venue. For example, the venue management company spells out the options for the food and Microsoft has to pick from what is available. I believe that those are easy to address, especially if this is going to be the long term home for Ignite. As Microsoft and the venue company build a relationship, the powers at Microsoft can sit down with the powers from the venue and hash out how to do better next year. Last year there were a number of complaints about transportation (having to wait 40+ minutes for buses) and I heard several about rude staff from the venue (like security staff). I have not heard these same complaints this year. So even with changing cities (and I would imagine the companies managing the venues) issues from last year were addressed. I know I for one would not want to be involved in planning an event for 25,000+ people. I cannot begin to imaging the logistic nightmares. Personally, if the biggest complaint is the food, I think that the event was a success. That’s my long-winded version of, “Yeah! You tell `em, Michael!” ☺ From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Michael Niehaus Sent: Friday, September 30, 2016 1:12 AM To: mssms@lists.myitforum.com Subject: RE: [mssms] Horrible food at Ignite Personally, I think this is the best Microsoft event that we’ve had in a long time. If you judge a conference by its food rather than what you learn, then I think your priorities are messed up. As was discussed in various places, feeding 23,000 people is rather challenging. I did have the lunch today, it was OK – not great, but it also was “grab and go” so I could eat while sitting in front of the biggest, longest screen I’ve ever seen, which was live streaming 8 sessions at once. Two keynotes on the first day got all the “marketing” out of the way (and the keynotes themselves got good reviews with very high attendance), there was a completely overwhelming amount of technical information shared, and there was a significant presence with external (and uncensored) speakers, MVPs and otherwise, with nearly all 300- and 400-level content. (We really don’t like doing 200-level content for IT pros, we consider that “prerequisite knowledge.”) We still have some work to do on the social aspects of this, figuring out effective ways to get people of common interests together. We had a lot of fun with the “ask us (almost) anything” sessions, there was a lot of great conversations with the product group members manning the booths, and a dizzying number of 1:1 customer meetings with everyone from me all the way up to our CEO. And I answered questions in pretty much every place imaginable – in the airport, in my hotel, in restaurants, on the MARTA trains, even in the restroom. (C’mon guys, respect some boundaries ☺) If you don’t hear much from us next week, it’s because we’re still recovering. -MTN From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Todd Hemsell Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2016 1:00 PM To: mssms@lists.myitforum.com Subject: Re: [mssms] Horrible food at Ignite "So, the bigger the event, the worse the quality?" No only in food, but also in quality of content and the depth of the content. The only people big events like that work out for are vendors and Microsoft. MS employees have to take off less time from work to go to the event. Marketing can plan everything for a single event. They prep the slide decks in advance and then decide you will read them. It is just marketing content and you are basically a fool if you paid for it. This is all about being good for Microsoft, not the customer. They stopped caring about the customer a long time ago. Now it is all about recurring payments and their bottom line. You see this with support, big fixes (or lack thereof), crappy events, missing kb articles, and a push towards the cloud and recurring payments. Even the way they fix their broken products is now being driven by what is best for them (monolithic updates) They got rid of the solution accelerator team because they no longer care about adding value to their products, they just care about their bottom line and trying to be apple. Their enterprise operating system even pushes down advertising against your will. Just blows my mind anyone would give them money to listen to that marketing speak. Obviously the same people that would pay for "Cloud" On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 11:26 AM, Roland Janus <roland.ja...@hispeed.ch> wrote: To sum that up: MS doesn’t safe any money, which is sad by itself, lunchboxes costing the same as “real” food. It’s cold and while it may be fresh, it’s mostly tasteless and just horrible IMO. And all that because waiting in line for 5 minutes is to long? I never had to wait longer and certainly not 20-30 minutes. While waiting at the restroom, at least for guys ☺, may take even longer? So, the bigger the event, the worse the quality? That’s just sad. Cheers, roland
