6 Tips for Microsoft Ignite first-timers
Yay, we did it! Two of my dev team colleagues and myself were flying over to Microsoft Ignite 2018. The scale of the conference is Impressive approximately 30k people in the US second largest conference center, all required to be accommodated with breakfast, lunch, drinks and high-quality sessions. Kudos to the brilliant organization.
Since this was our first time there, I want to share some lessons we learned.
6 Tips to make the most out of your conference
1. Plan your Sessions early
Try to create your personal MyIgnite schedule at least a few weeks in advance if you also want to take part in the more interactive ones (Hands-on Labs etc.). To be honest, I was too late to get a spot in the Hands-On Labs I was interested in.
2. Don't try to make it to every session
There are around 1600 Sessions which gives you plenty of relevant content to choose from. When I went through the offered sessions and added them to my schedule I had sometimes two or three interesting Sessions at the same time.
After the first two days of running from session to session, I decided to cut some slack and allow me some gaps in between. This gave me the chance to visit the expo and socialize.
I left all the sessions in my schedule though. That way I was able to choose at the moment before the session and have a queue of recordings to watch back home. In the end, I still attended 25 sessions, well maybe a little less won't hurt next time…
3. Don’t focus too much on one topic
Well, I had some focus topics I wanted to cover (Azure Kubernetes, Azure Functions, and Azure Governance), so I went to a lot of sessions in this area.
The problem with that is, you get a lot of repetition with the introduction slides. After a few days, I decided to broaden my Topics and check out the additional sessions for my focus topic as a recording. That way I can skip the introduction and have more time for other interesting things.
4. Check out the Expo to connect, collect Swag and Party Tickets
Since I bought me some time between the sessions I had time for the expo. To be honest, I was a little bit skeptical about it. Yet another place for salesmen I thought, but I was wrong.
One of the best things were the Booths for Microsofts own Products or Services (eg. Azure Web Apps, Azure Kuberenetes Service, SharePoint Online…). You can go there meet folks from the Product team and have the chance to ask specific questions, besides asking them in the sessions.
The ISV Booths are also not a bad place to go to. Besides some really interesting products, there is plenty of Swag to collect. It’s also a good place to get some tickets for their parties in the evening.
5. Note of your key takeaways
Although all sessions are recorded and you theoretically can review them when you need them later, its hard to even remember the name of the session after one week. Even if you remember, you have to skim through an hour of video to find the knowledge nuggets you looked for.
The OneNote mobile app is brilliant for that, you can take photos of the slides and also note your thoughts. All in one place and fully searchable, I love it.
6. Queue in for the keynote
Since we are already there, we wanted to watch the keynote live and not a streamed version at some other places in the conference center.
Monday starts with breakfast onsite and the keynote began at 9:00. We went there at 7:00 had a quick breakfast and queued in for the keynote line right behind the breakfast area. This way we got a spot in the main room and enjoyed everything live.
Conclusion
All in all, we had a good time at the conference, It was a pretty intense week with much knowledge we can directly apply in our everyday business, interesting conversations and of course a decent amount of celebration.
I hope I could provide you with some good tips if you plan to go there next time. By the way, the upcoming ignite will be in Orlando again but this time from Nov 4. — November 8.
Enjoy!
