I spend the weekend in Indianapolis at the IndyTechFest 2008 and had a great time. It's a smaller, regional conference type event that takes place on a Saturday (this is their second year) and it covers .NET, SQL Server, and Sharepoint tracks. It's a good sized event, over 400, and the leaders of the various user groups have done a great job.
John Magnabosco, who runs IndyPass, started contacting me last year (2007) and trying to get me to come. I begged off last year, not really wanting to travel and having some conflicts, but John got both me and Andy Warren out there this year. It was partially a favor to speak and support the event and partially to see how someone else runs an event. Andy and I, along with Brian Knight, have been running the SQL Saturday events for a year now and we have more coming up. If you're in Olympia, WA or Greenville, SC this weekend (Oct 11, 2008), there are events to attend.
We've struggled to get the events going outside of our home towns, at least Orlando and Jacksonville. There's another event in Denver, so I haven't organized one yet, but who knows what will happen. It seems to come down to the event organizer really putting time and effort in there, even with coaching from Andy, and this weekend confirmed that. Andy wrote a bit about the event already and I tend to agree with what he said. This organizers have done a great job fundraising and that makes a big difference, but they put on a great event.
I spoke on Green Computing at lunch, slightly delayed because of the way lunch was run, but it worked out OK. It was actually good since my presentation ran just about one time, maybe 5 minutes early, and I would have been 30 minutes early if I'd started on time. That's my bad, but I honestly thinking the type of people that would like the talk would be excited and they'd talk about green computing more.
It was great meeting John and his fellow chapter leaders after emailing with him for over a year. They were nice hosts and it was interesting to see how they run things. Indy is a nice city, we had great weather, and they have a lot of passion for the community and helping people. People in Indy are lucky to have them.
I'm in Indianapolis for the Indy Tech Fest, having been talked into speaking by John M. He started emailing me last year, I begged off then, but he persisted and so I have a lunchtime session on green computing and energy tomorrow. In any case, Andy Warren and I met today for some brainstorming and now I'm back at the hotel, trying to get some work done tonight. Luckily it's two hours ahead here so I'm not too tired. Unluckily, the time difference will matter in the morning a lot more.
We're staying at the Sheraton, in Indy, a large city with a few professional sports teams, a couple miles from the event, and a fairly new, modern, nice hotel in a tech center type area. It's a 10 or 11 story hotel and I found myself surprised by a couple things.
This is a fairly upscale hotel, so paying for Internet seems surprising to me. Especially in a business area, I'd expect most people would need access, so charging for it annoys me and honestly makes me reconsider ever booking at a Sheraton again.
The second is the lack of Wi-fi. Paying for Internet, while not a lot of money, is annoying. However then having to use a wired connection, unable to sit in bed and work, is doubly upsetting. In this relatively modern age, in a fairly large city, I'm surprised that wireless isn't pervasive in a hotel like this.
Geeks, beware of Sheraton hotels.
