I attended the Microsoft Ireland Windows “Longhorn” academy during the latter half of 2007. It was run by Microsoft’s Dave Northey with the assistance of staff from MCS. Dave did a nice job on briefing IT pro’s from around Ireland about Windows Server 2008. I got to know Dave and I expressed an interest in being involved with the launch in some way. As time went by I got involved in the Microsoft IT Pro Momentum program, I was feature on a video tape on Microsoft’s web site and I started leading Windows Server 2008 User Group Ireland.
A little while ago, Dave asked if I’d be willing to help out with the launch either as an “Ask the Expert” or by doing some sort of demo thing. I was flat out busy but I jumped at the chance. Dave sent me over a link to a streaming video where he demonstrates IIS7. He said we’d be doing something like this. Cool!
The week before the event I went down to the MS office in Sandyford and met up with Dave and Mark O’Neill, another MS consultant, who’d be on stage with us. The plan was that there would be three launch events during the day with different audiences at 12:00, 15:00 and 18:00. Each event would feature a 25 minute keynote followed by the audience breaking out into different demo rooms: Windows Server 2008 (in the main hall) Silverlight, mobile computing, SQL 2008, Visual Studio 2008, Hyper-V and the sponsor stands. The following 1.5 hours was broken up into 3 * 25 minute slots for presentations in these different rooms. We’d be doing 3 sessions on Windows Server 2008 in the main hall. Our first and second sessions were identical: Setting up Windows Full and Core along with Server Manager and Clustering. The third session would kick off with me on IIS7 followed by the guys talking about Terminal Services. Wow … I was getting nervous when we planned that 🙂
Some of MS management wanted a briefing on how Dave had planned the sessions. We sat down in a room with them while Dave did all the sessions. Dave, if you haven’t met him, can talk really, really fast. The plan for the demonstrations was that they would be canned streaming videos. We’d simply play them on Media Player in full screen mode and talk over them. This eliminated the chance of errors plus it allowed us to trim out things like reboots that could take forever and leave the room full of coughing over the silence. Even with things being chopped out or “accelerated” we knew our time would be tight. We were told the session 25 minute time limits would be strictly enforced. The managers like Dave’s plan and we got some coffee to work out who would do what and when. We arranged to meet again on the Friday afternoon to rehearse. The launch was going to be on the following Tuesday.
I commute to work on the train. Dave had given me a copy of the videos so I watched them on the train to and from work to practice my timing. I was trying to say the things that I knew Dave was saying but he talks so fast at times it proved impossible. It became clear that I’d have to pause the videos to get out the important points in at the correct times. This could cause problems with the time limits. I’m sure people were looking at me funny on the train as I muttered away to myself and my laptop.
Friday afternoon came along all too quickly. My time was short because of work and because of another project I’m doing outside of work. I got in just around lunch time and was met by Mark. Dave was at an event being held with some staff and the #2 in Microsoft, the global chief operating officer. We went into the canteen to grab a sandwich. The Atrium B canteen is huge. It can hold hundreds of people at once. I noticed as we were in there that people were looking at me. Uh oh! Not long after Mark told me that a snippet of the video I’d done for MS on IIS7 was played to the audience. It appeared that people were partially recognizing me. Dave eventually turned up from the event and we got down to rehearsing in a (very) nice conference room. Different people stopped in every now and then to check it out. One guy (I forget his name) was looking at me for ages and then said “Do I know you from somewhere?” It was the video again. Mark found timing was tough too. He needed to pause the videos. Dave had already chopped some more unnecessary progress bar stuff and had spliced the videos into two different streams. This would allow two different speakers to work on stage in concert with two different laptops and two different displays on the big screen. In between them would be a PowerPoint deck which Dave would manage. Dave and Mark wanted to use a media player remote control to manage the pause/play functionality of Media Player. Me … I was undecided at this point. We got through things. Dave had a few more things that he wanted me to get across which I memorized. We were going to meet up at 7PM at the event venue, the Tripod in Dublin’s Harcourt Street, to ensure everything was in place. We would not rehears on the Monday night … Dave reckoned we’d only end up staying until all sorts of crazy hours trying to get it perfect and be a mess for the event on Tuesday.
Monday night came around. I got a call from Dave at 18:40 saying there was no need to come over. The event stage seemed perfect and everything seemed in order. Cool. We’d meet at Starbucks at 8am for coffee and then go in to rehearse.
Tuesday morning. People asked me if I’d be nervous speaking in front of 700 people, 3 times in the day. I had done small stuff for customers, a small conference, some stuff at MS and at the camera club. They were all small audiences and initially my nerves were bad but I’d get into a groove. I reckoned a bigger audience would be easier. The thing that gets me is the inevitable person you see being bored or not paying attention. You cannot see that in a large audience.
I decided to go in extra early and take the car. I wasn’t risking traffic and I wasn’t risking Irish Rail going on a strike or cancelling services due to wet rain or some other sad excuse. I got to Starbucks early, got some coffee and started rehearsing on my laptop. Dave and Mark were early and we got some coffee into us. Dave asked me where my black jeans were. Huh? He’d forgotten to tell me. The dress code was black. We went into the venue to get our speaker packs 🙂 We had to don long sleeved black shirts with red writing: “Hero’s happen here” on the front and “Ask the Expert” on the back. We made our way up to the main stage and started getting ready. The A/V guys were there and started working with us straight away. There was a huge screen behind us, split in three as we required using different projectors. We had some technical issues which were quickly dealt with – it turns out that 800 * 600 pixels output with the same color depth and refresh rates are different on different models of Dell laptop. That caused some consternation. Someone brought us a full tray of about 24 bottles of water which we kept on stage. We were also informed that breakfast was being kept for us (even after serving had stopped) until we were ready for it. Wow – these MS events people are good! The worst thing was the traffic light system installation. A small box with green, amber and red lights was tucked away where only we could see it on stage. Green meant we were fine to talk. Amber meant we had 3 minutes. Red meant we had 1 minute before music would start to drown us out – just like the Oscars. They were being very strict on timing. This was an issue because we knew our first two sessions were going to be a tight squeeze.
Me, Mark O’Neill and Dave Northey. Photo Courtesy of Michal Osmenda
The guys had gotten their hands on some Microsoft “presentation” mice. They were tiny Bluetooth devices, covered in buttons that doubled as laser pointers, multimedia controllers and presentation controllers. They looked too fiddly for me. I was going to use CTRL+P to pause and play my videos.
We got breakfast and we started to mingle. I got to meet lots of the other speakers, some I knew and some I didn’t. Nick Whittome (SBS MVP and admin on the MR&D forum) was there as an expert and we chatted for ages. We hadn’t met since the first Minasi forum in Virginia Beach in May 2006.
It was getting close to time. The main hall had gotten packed since I was in there last. I stood in the back with Mark and we watched as Paul Rellis (MS Ireland head) and David Lowe (W2008 global launch manager and Rapid Deployment manager AND first event speaker at the Windows Server 2008 User Group Ireland) did their keynote. My only worry was getting up on stage during the brief interval after their stint. All too soon, they were finished and I saw Dave climbing up the steps. Me and Mark squeezed our way through the crowd and got on stage to get ready.
The music stopped and Dave spoke. It was him, me and Mark on the stage being stared at by hundreds of faces in the dark. Dave introduced us and the session. Then I spoke. I wasn’t nervous. We went through the session. Once I was done with Server Manager I stepped back and Dave took my place for the last third of the session. He still wasn’t near finished when the red light came on. Uh oh! The session ended with the music blaring as Dave shouted to the audience what was happening next and later. We had five minutes to fix this. Someone, David Lowe I think, came up and suggested chopping the start of the Core video that Mark was doing. It was almost identical to what I was doing. We didn’t have a chance to get the plan sorted when it was time to repeat the session for our second time slot. The audience was much smaller this time. Mark had a slight hiccup but covered it like a pro. The timing change had caught him a little unaware – so I’m told. I didn’t even notice. We made it to the end with a little time to spare. Beautiful! We now had 5 minutes to our final session in the first event.
Press photographers were meandering around taking photos of speakers and the crowd. Michal Osmenda (Blog and Flickr) from Microsoft was there taking loads of shots. I’m an amateur photographer and we chatted for a while. It’s Michal’s photographs that you see here.
It was funny. I kept seeing and meeting people. Some of them I’d meet regularly or met recently. Some of them I hadn’t met in years. It was like an episode of “This is your life”.
The third session kicks off with Dave doing a very quick introduction. Then it’s me for 10 or 12 minutes talking about IIS7. You know, I think I got nervous for this one. I was standing up there alone with the guys in the shadows. I knew the material but there was some pressure. I got into the swing of things and just worked it. Soon enough it was time for me to step down as the guys worked the rest of the session.
Photo Courtesy of Michal Osmenda
Phew! We finished the first event! Feedback was instant. David Lowe told me to stop calling the different items in the IIS7 MMC “applets”. They are “modules”. Of course, this isn’t Java 🙂 We sorted out the timing of the first session and the Server Core build. Most importantly, a BIG box was brought up to us with food and drink for lunch. Wow … it was 2PM already.
The second event came along quick. They guys had warned me that once you hear the keynote it can get boring the second and third time. Yeap, that was true. David Lowe is a good speaker but once you’ve heard the material you don’t want to hear it again a few hours later. It was time for us to get up and do the first session again. We slightly ran over but we reckoned we could bring it in without running over from then on. The repeat proved that point. I did my IIS7 session again and that was the2nd of three events over with.
At some point, maybe it was after the first event or the second I was asked to be interviewed by ComputerScope. I was quickly briefed by someone from Marketing on what the generic message was before behind rushed into a room with a journalist. The recorder was on the desk as I was asked loads of questions about W2008 and the potential impact of Terminal Services and Hyper-V. The message, in case you missed the Irish IT media, was “green computing”.
Everyone was getting tired now. I wandered about a bit to stretch my legs. There isn’t too far to wander in the Tripod. A bunch of us were up in a lounge for a while where Martha Rotter was holding the SilverLight Court. Eventually I meandered down to the bar to get a coffee and grabbed myself a balcony seat for the keynote session in the third event. I dozed up there and knew the timing well enough now to make my way to the stage in time for our first session in this event.
If it wasn’t for adrenaline I think I might have fallen asleep on stage. I think we might even have been a little giddy for this last event. We brought in the first and second sessions in good time. My IIS7 talk was fun. I had some banter going on with Mark Skelton in the front of the audience on how IIS7 performance would improve from basic CGI, to fast CGI and then add in content caching. And then it was over. The building vacated almost instantly.
Photo Courtesy of Michal Osmenda
The MS crew had reserved some space at the Odeon bar next door. I was driving so I was one beer only followed by some cokes. It was nice to just sit back and relax after the long day. I was flat out tired. I eventually said my “goodbyes” and hit the road, grabbing some fast food on the way home. I barely remember what I ate.
Was it stressful? Yes. Was it tiring? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes. Was it fun? Yes. Would I repeat it? Yes.
As big as this event was I thought it would be absolute mayhem behind the scenes. It was far from it. Everything was planned and went to schedule … except for us running over 🙂 The whole day was incredibly well run from my point of view. Lots of people worked very hard to make the launch go smoothly and I applaud them for it.