The 2 day bootcamp was held by Microsoft this week and what a great event it was!! As usual, Microsoft spared no expense and we were spoilt rotten. We went to Intundla Game Lodge – what a spot! The best part being no cellphone reception so you could really concentrate on the sessions. Just look at this place, only an hour outside of Jhb :
Shanghai Events coordinated everything for Microsoft, and Pam is simply the most efficient and friendly events coordinator you could ever hope to have!
We got some cool goodies too; the dog tags were my favourite.
Of course there was a party to be held and there was plenty of laughing and happiness around. I think it’s safe to say the Mint team kicked off the party and wasn’t long before people were in the pool clothes and all and we’d finished all the beer in the resort.
Seeing as the only 2 non techies (Louise and I), couldn’t understand half of what everyone was talking about, we spent 2 days deciding who the hottest techie was instead! Of course we can’t reveal who won.
There were plenty of blonde moments by various people including trying to pull open a door that was actually a sliding door and not actually double locked, drinking neat passion fruit thinking it was juice, not being able to find your chalet at 2 in the morning, and stopping in the middle of a sentence to say ‘Sorry, I felt a bit nauseous there’ . Names have been excluded to protect the guilty.
It’s funny how day 1 the room was packed at 9:00am sharp. On day 2 however, there was about a quarter of that … maybe it’s something they ate. Or not… You’ve never seen so much water, bacon, eggs and Creme Soda consumed in one morning!
The sessions we attended were :
- SharePoint 2010 – Overview and What’s New
- Architecture and Administration
- Social Networking Driven by My Sites, User Profiles and More
- Building Composite Solutions Using Business Connectivity Services (BCS) and SharePoint Designer
- Office Web Applications and Multi-User Authoring
- Search Options
- Upgrading from SharePoint 2007
Michael O’Donovan and Doug McCusker were our very efficient presenters.
Don’t worry if you missed it all, I hear there is going to be another one just like it in June or July.
Views from Veronique 