20 Random Thoughts from Lotusphere 2011 #LS11

Some completely random thoughts in no particular order

1. The WiFi held up nicely this year, vast improvement over previous years

2. My first and only cup of coffee the entire week was on Thursday morning – don’t know how or why but I am not a Starbucks fan and the cup I had was terrible so just as well

3. Warren Elsmore gets extra geek points no not for a Lego model of the Dolphin Hotel, but for loading a custom firmware on his camera

4. For the first time in 7 Lotusphere I made it to the Vendor Showcase Monday night for the reception

5. It was really nice to walk around not surrounded by piles of snow for a week

6. Still impossible to do everything at Lotusphere, sessions I wanted to see, friends I wanted to see present, people I wanted to spend more time with.. no regrets though, I did what I could in the time I had.

7. No football on Sunday I really like this setup but based on next years dates, looks like it will be either Wild Card or Divisional playoff games on Sunday

8. They changed the vendor for Kosher meals this year, I enjoyed the meals much more this year then in the past.

9. Mat Newman – life of the party, delivered one of the most talked about sessions of the week, walked away with a couple of awards for ISW (if you haven’t yet check out Wildfire on OpenNTF), you can say he had a good week, and added a lot of fun to my week.

10. Riding the Hulk 4 times in 2 hours is a bit much, the first three were fine, the fourth one took me a little time to recover from.

11. Carrying a camera at all times is a guarantee of capturing great memories from the week – it’s a trade off I leave the DSLR in the room sacrificing quality, but using the point and shoot which is easier to carry and use all the time.

12. More on photography – for a second year in a row I was good at not only taking pictures, but getting in to pictures myself as well, nice to come of of pics taken with my friends, not just of them.

13. I was at Kimonos at closing 3 nights…. I never thought I would say this but I might need to learn from Paul how to have an early night

14. 500 Students at the OGS good… shame they were bored… the rest of their day was good though (More on this in another post)

14. OGS trending on Twitter…. way cool

15. Of all the events I have attended, Lotusphere remains the most unique, and the only one I have seen that evokes such passion from it’s attendees

16. I still like the older (2009 and prior) badge holders better, the velcro closed badges of the last 2 years are prone to opening, and itch the back of your neck (fortunately I was prepared with a Curious George bandaid to keep it shut, and prevent the itching

17. The UKLUG guys know how to throw a party

18. The Australians really know how to throw a party (see number 9)

19. Brian Cheng rocks demos! (and is an all around good guy)

20. Not carrying a laptop for most of Lotusphere made the week so much easier… Smartphones and Tablets FTW!