This morning we received the green light for our TechEd registrations from our HR Dept. So I jumped straight onto the site, and completed my registration! I can assure you it had absolutely nothing to do with THIS :). Now it's all locked in and paid for. Can't wait. If it's anywhere near as good as last year's conference, it'll be well worth our time.
For instance, our experiences at last year's conference led directly to our current OCS implementation, which has been very well received by the staff, and is starting to transform the way we deliver our internal training sessions. Not only is the LiveMeeting functionality saving us real money in reducing the need for travel between our 20 sites (and growing!) spread across Oz, but it's allowing us to improve the quality and consistency of our training by being able to record the LiveMeeting sessions. This gives the presenters a chance go back through their sessions and evaluate their performance and improve their presenting skills. It saves us further money and time by allowing that recorded session to be made available across our intranet, so that new staff or staff who missed the original training session can replay the session at their leisure. Not only does this improve the consistency of the training that is being delivered, but it saves the presenters time as they only need to present the training once or twice, and it can be recorded and replayed as many times as necessary. Initial cost savings in reduced travel expenditure, ongoing cost and time savings for re-delivering the training, and improved quality of the training material - quite a win for the firm right there!
Later this year we will be looking to build on this success by upgrading our OCS implementation to the latest R2 version, and are even investigating the possibility of using it as our firm-wide VoIP solution. That last step is still a fair way off, but it speaks of the impact that this single platform is having within the firm, and it all started for us at TechEd 08.
This year I'll be putting a lot of focus into the Windows Client/Server track, as I believe that the Windows 7 / Server 2008R2 combination is possible of delivering real benefits to our firm that will equal hard dollar savings. Office System, UC and Mobility tracks will also get a fair workout, as they did last year. Technology like BranchCache and the more efficient file copy mechanisms will help us to make better use of our WAN links. DirectAccess will reduce complexity for our users, and give them access to all their data wherever they are. We have budgeted in the coming 12 months for projects around Exchange and Forefront, Forefront Client Security, and ISA server - all platforms that I'm hoping to delve into at TechEd and get the inside scoop on. Not to mention already-planned upgrades to Office 2007 across the firm, and other little tricks like that that should serve to show how busy our next 12 months is going to be!
In fact, I was very tempted by the pre-conference seminar on Sharepoint Workflow, and tried to stretch our budget to cover that day as well. Unfortunately our training budget has been somewhat pruned over late, and I had to give that a miss. Which is a shame, since we are rapidly approaching our Go! date for our current Sharepoint implementation project, and I believe that one of the real big impacts it will have within the firm is the capability to drive workflow processes. Even for simple things such as absence leave requests and accounts reimbursement forms, the ability to run those processes via a standardised workflow within Sharepoint will massively improve the service that various departments in the firm can provide. And I think that pre-conf seminar would have given us a great grounding in what we could do with the platform when we launch it. So if anyone wants to shout me a free ticket to that day, feel free to get in touch!!! :)
Tech Ed 09 - 2 months to go, and counting down!
