I have received a lot of interest in a PowerShell Summit Europe, and we are starting to look at doing one in 2014. I know that’s a long way off, but it takes time to put these together when everyone’s volunteering that time! I have put together a very short survey to see if there is any consensus on where such an event might be held. The survey is online now and ready for your opinions. Please forward this to your colleagues and co-workers, as well - we would really like a variety of opinions. If you want to tweet about it, Facebook it, or anything else to help us get a broad perspective, it would be much appreciated. I must note that this event will be in English, as it is meant to be a pan-European event that involves as many different folks as possible. We are not attempting to hold a more regional, culture-specific event - some of those already exist (I’m aware of one in Germany, for example), and they do a better job serving their local market (which can be quite large) than we could ever do. We are trying to fill a different need, which is more along the lines of a very miniature TechEd Europe, which brings as many different folks together as possible. Hopefully we will achieve that goal. Thank you for your time and input!
The PowerShell Summit North America 2014 will be held April 28, 29, and 30 at the Meydenbauer Center on Northeast 6th Street in Bellevue, WA. Your membership in the PowerShell Summit also makes you a yearlong member of PowerShell.org, the online hub for the PowerShell community. Membership includes a daily continental breakfast, daily hot lunch, and three tracks of expert-led lectures and discussions. 2014 tracks include:
INTERNALS: Inner secrets of PowerShell, suitable for developers and admins alike.
DEEP DIVES: Dig into technically rich topics related to the shell itself and broad administrative tasks.
DOMAIN SPECIFIC: Focus on managing specific server products and technologies using the shell.
[NB: For tax reasons, you become a “member” of the organization and go to our meeting as part of that; we don’t sell “tickets.”] Pricing will range from $750-$950. We’d originally hoped to do a flat price, but the logistics of our venue is pushing this decision. So we’ll be offering discounted tickets first, and then moving up the price as we go. Get in early to get the cheap seats! If you choose to stay at one of our official hotels, you’ll enjoy a reduced room rate, complimentary in-room Internet, and a short 15-minute walk to the Meydenbauer Center. We recommend taking a shuttle from the airport (http://bit.ly/ZNWGcw $20oneway; taxis $65+) instead of a rental car; parking is NOT complimentary. NEARBY HOTELS include: Sheraton (http://bit.ly/10mVQog), Hilton (http://bit.ly/YsQiq8), and Red Lion (http://bit.ly/10gXH8v). All are adjacent to each other and are a .6 mile walk to the Meydenbauer Center. Courtyard by Marriott (http://bit.ly/12RvG9a) is across the street from the Meydenbauer Center. We do not yet have official room availability and rates. These hotels are also less than a 4-minute taxi ride (under $5oneway) to downtown Bellevue, full of retail, dining, bars, and nightlife. You will probably spend MORE on a rental car (around $100 best-case, plus parking fees and fuel). We will have a small-bandwidth Internet pipe available for WiFi use at the conference center. We recommend that you NOT rely on it for mission-critical or business-sensitive tasks, as it is a shared pipe and will likely have poor performance during peak usage. We are not currently planning to offer power outlets in rooms. You may NOT stretch power cords across walkways to plug in your laptop. We are seeking out a Power Sponsor - the cost to have enough power for everyone’s laptop is about $20,000 (it’s one way conference centers make their profits), so this is a significant expense. We are planning a brief private meet-and-greet reception for PowerShell.org, Inc. shareholders. We are also planning general evening events. MEMBERSHIP SALES WILL BEGIN IN JULY with a private announcement to our 2013 alumni and our shareholders. After that, we will offer a block of memberships to our TechLetter subscribers. These folks will have first dibs not only on the event, but also on our limited block of nearby and discounted hotel rooms. We will release subsequent blocks in 2013 and 2014 for the public. FULL DETAILS will always be available online at http://PowerShellSummit.org (this will redirect to the appropriate page for information and news). UPDATE: I know there’s a bit of disappointment that we’re not “on campus.” First… understand that we were a little under-the-radar in 2013, in terms of outside groups doing what we did in those particular locations. We also need to grow the event a bit in order to make it financially self-sustaining. And, the real clincher, no place “on campus” could accommodate us. However, “campus” (this is why I keep putting it in quotes) spans Redmond and Bellevue - we’re actually adjacent to Microsoft offices, in 2014, and we’re scheduling an evening event (community/team mixer, with team Q&A stations) in MS facilities. We’ll also try to wrangle a company store/museum visit (there’s a company Connector Shuttle that runs to Commons, which is where the store and museum are located). Most importantly, our location will ensure team participation - which is what doing this in the Seattle metro was all about. In fact, we’re planning expanded team participation, with the addition of team-led “lightning demos” that will highlight cool features and tricks, and which will be a prelude to that evening’s community/team mixer (so you can ask follow-up questions in smaller groups). So… given all of the possible alternatives, we felt this was the best solution. After all, the main session content is just you sitting in a room - shouldn’t matter where that room is. The big thing for us is the team engagement, and the opportunity to do fun stuff on campus, and we think we’ve got that nailed. More to come.
Aaron Hoover, one of our Summit attendees, was kind enough to record via webcam the sessions he attended - and he’s posted about 13 hours of video on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. What I’d like to know from you, if you don’t mind dropping a comment below, is what you think of these. If we offered this KIND of recording in the future, would it be helpful? This is something we can do easily and is affordable from a technical perspective; there’s obviously a production quality compromise. We can do more… but it costs more, and someone’s going to have to pay for it. So… where do you sit on this kind of recording?
So, we did have one enterprising fella use his Webcam to record the Summit sessions he attended. Once he gets with me, we’ll get those online so you can see. We are trying to think really hard about formal recordings for next time. It depends a lot on what folks want. For example:
Pointing a camera at the front of the room is easy and cheap. We worry that the audio might suck and that you might not be able to read on-screen code - although many presenters make their code/slides available for download.
Putting software on presenters’ machines to capture what they do is out of the question. There are MORE than enough moving parts already going on in the room - this just won’t work out consistently.
We can get one-button-recording devices that capture everything the speaker does on-screen, and an audio feed. You don’t get to SEE the speaker, and these are about $1000 each, plus sundry cables and adapters. For several hundred more, we can add a picture-in-picture from a camera feed.
So we can do cheap-o… well, cheaply. And if folks are happy with that, we’ll do it. We can do pretty awesome-looking for pretty-expensive… and that’s going to require a fundraising campaign. We aren’t Microsoft, and recording three rooms, along with possible general sessions, is going to take about $8-$12k in equipment. Our goal, however, would be to give the videos away for free once a year’s event sells to its “break even” attendance point. Live streaming won’t happen. Meeting venues get like $5,000 per day for a 5-10Mbps pipe. Yeah, you thought they made money off the $80/gallon coffee. We just can’t afford the bandwidth to livestream. We’re not even always sure we can turn on WiFi for people to check e-mail. It’s that expensive. Please drop some comments. Knowing what kind of video people are willing to accept will really help us plan this out for next time, and we need a lot of lead time to do that.
If you are attending the PowerShell Summit next week in Redmond, you might want to make sure you have copies of the schedule on hand. There are two tracks, and I have created two pdf documents, one for each track, that provide the full schedule including session abstracts and speaker bios. PowerShell Summit 2013 Conference Schedule - Track 1 PowerShell Summit 2013 Conference Schedule - Track 2 While those details are very useful, some of the conference attendees have expressed an interest in having a consolidated view of the agenda so that they could see which sessions were taking place on each of the tracks and choose which they were more interested in. Ask, and ye shall receive. Here is a consolidated view of the conference sessions on all tracks, with each day on a separate page. PowerShell Summit 2013 Conference Schedule - At at glance Note that if you don"™t have a ticket for the conference, it is sold out for this year. We"™re planning the 2014 conference now, so keep watching this blog for news about that conference as it becomes available. There are already a few posts about it that are worth reviewing if you missed them. Thanks, and enjoy the conference next week! Kirk out.
Please make sure you’re following this announcements category as you travel to, and attend, the Summit. It’s the best way for us to get out late-breaking news.
Registration begins at 8am on Monday, April 22nd, in the lobby of Building 40. Now, sometimes the lobby doors open a wee bit late - so bear with us. The first sessions aren’t until 9am, so there’s plenty of time. Please bring a printout of your ticket from EventBrite, and a photo ID. Session pre-registration didn’t happen - we had some volunteers have emergency health issues that just got us behind schedule, so we couldn’t get the mobile app thing going. No fear. Sessions will be on a first-come, first-seated basis. Note that we are spread between two adjacent buildings, so you may have to traipse from one to the other during the 15-minute session breaks. Meals will include a very light continental breakfast and a lunch. We will endeavor to supply soft drinks throughout the day, but that will require Microsoft employees to shuttle them to us. You’re welcome to bring your own soft drinks. We’ve got coffee lined up. Please respect your fellow attendees - we’ve ordered enough food for everyone, but that assumes everyone’s taking a normal-sized serving. A plate piled high with croissants isn’t normal, and deprives your fellow attendees of their share. Seriously - this happened at a conference I was at a couple of weeks ago. Pretty sad. Kickoff we will have a VERY SHORT kickoff in each session room at 8:45am. We’ll endeavor to present all general material in both session rooms, since neither room can accommodate all of us at once. Jason Helmick and myself will be handling those duties throughout the event. You’re welcome to come to us with any problems you run into. Problems may arise - bear in mind this is our first year, and just be patient with us. If you bring it to our attention, we’ll fix what we can, as soon as we can. We really appreciate your help and patience as we try to make a great event! Wi-Fi is not guaranteed, and we will not have power drops for everyone’s laptop. Please do not stretch your laptop power cord across any walkways - you will be asked to unplug for safety reasons. We suggest leaving the laptop in your hotel room, so help make the room more comfortable for everyone (if everyone brings a laptop and a giant bag for it, it’s going to get cramped). Parking is limited on-site, and you need to make sure you park in a space that isn’t restricted. Check-in with the building receptionist to see if your car needs to be registered. You can also park at the ExtendedStay America hotel across the street, and walk to buildings 40 and 41. You’re responsible for your own transportation during the event. Evening events are strictly on-your-own. We don’t have anything official planned. If someone puts something together ad-hoc and tells us, we’ll do our best to spread the word. This is an informal event - don’t think of the Summit as a conference like TechEd, but rather as a gathering of friends and colleagues. It’ll be less structured, more ad-hoc, and hopefully more engaging. Please be respectful of speakers while they present, and follow their guidelines on when to ask questions. We do have to push them off the stage at the end of their allotted time, so give them their time to complete their presentation for you. If you have additional Q&A after the session ends, please take it into the lobby so that the next session can start. MONDAY AT LUNCH we will launch the 2013 Scripting Games with an EnergizedTech opening ceremonies video. It’ll be a pageant - don’t miss it. 12:30pm in each session room. WEDNESDAY AT LUNCH in the lobby or session room in building 40, you’re invited to meet the Summit organizers (if you’ve managed to avoid us until then) and offer feedback for 2014.
If you’re attending the Summit and are arriving Sunday afternoon, drop by the Azteca restaurant on 148th. I’ll be there with some of the Board from 5pm, in the bar. It’s informal, pay-your-own-way, and a chance just to say hi before we kick off on Monday. Safe journey!
In an effort to keep folks as fully informed as possible, I’ll periodically share information about the Summit for next year. In this update, I want to explain how we’re hoping to address some of the issues (all good ones, actually) that we’ve experienced with the 2013 event.
First, the 2013 event sold out fast. We have a fire code limit of about 100 people and we hit it quickly - and our wait list ballooned to almost as many people. The moral of that story is that (a) we need more space and (b) people gotta sign up quicker if they want a spot! This is like grabbing those U2 tickets - camp out overnight and snap ’em up. So we’re hoping to be in the Microsoft Conference Center (MSCC) on campus, which should allow us around 250 attendees in 2014. We can’t book that space until about a year out, we’re told, but once we can start booking we will announce it here. Our 2013 alumni will get first dibs, and we’ll have about 25 early bird tickets to sell. We expect pricing to be about $700 for those, and about $850 for full-price tickets, plus about $40-$50 in ticketing fees (which covers credit card merchant fees and the ticketing company fee). Second, we will offer tickets as soon as we can do so. That may include an “I’m Feeling Lucky” ticket even before we know our dates (we’re still aiming for April 2014). However, due to changing regulations, we can only offer refunds for 30 days after you make your purchase, or (due to logistics) until February 1st, whichever comes first. That’s something you’ll have to take into account. Third, we’re going to make the waitlist process a bit more automated, and give you the ability to use the waitlist to sell your ticket to someone else if you change your mind about attending. People will be able to waitlist on PowerShell.org, and prospective ticket-sellers will be able to offer tickets to that list. You’re on your own for completing the transaction (we suggest PayPal), and you simply notify us of the transfer once it’s complete. Fourth, in case the question of recording the sessions comes up again, here’s the deal. It’s expensive. We’ve looked into it, and we’ll need about $8,000 in equipment, which is a one-time expense that will let us record sessions with a minimum of on-site labor. So we’re going to launch an IndieGoGo campaign in late 2013 to try and raise that money. Contributors will receive (depending on the amount they contribute) access to all future Summit recordings, a discount on Summit recordings for 2014, or full access to the 2014 recordings. If we don’t meet our goal, we won’t record, and everyone gets their money back. If we do meet our goal, only contributors will get access to the 2014 videos. However, in subsequent years we will sell (for a nominal fee) access to the videos to the public - that’ll happen after the Summit is over. In years where the Summit sells out, we’ll put the videos online for free (unless we need to recoup labor costs, in which case there might still be a nominal fee). This is the fair-est approach we could come up with that balances our need to have a successful on-site event (without the paying attendees, we can’t do this thing at all) and to accommodate the needs of folks who can’t possibly attend. Fifth, we still have no word on any events outside the US, and probably will not. We are simply not pursuing it at this time. It gets very complicated when a US business starts doing events in other countries, and we don’t have the manpower or resources to tackle that right now. Several folks have expressed an interest in spearheading various non-US versions of the Summit, and most of those are going nowhere. One problem is that, in Europe, nobody appears interested in a “Euro Summit;” they all want one in their own country, which makes the whole endeavor financially risky and exponentially more complicated. There’s a huge concern that if we do one in (say) Barcelona, nobody from outside that area will even come. Another problem is that the Summit involves an insane amount of work - personally, I’ve spent hundreds of hours on this and I know Kirk has as well, along with Jason, Jeff, and Richard, the Scripting Wife, and a few more volunteers. It’s a lot of work, and thus far we haven’t seen anyone outside the US willing to take it on. Keep in mind that we all still need to have our full-time jobs to pay for silly things like groceries and electricity; we can’t afford to take out much more volunteer time. Sixth, the 2014 Summit will look much like the 2013 Summit in terms of content: about three dozen sessions in one-hour blocks, with about 45 minutes per session (including Q&A time). We’ll feed you breakfast and lunch. We are going to book out a block of rooms at a nearby hotel, and will run a shuttle bus to and from that hotel (only!) and the Summit venue. That should help lower travel costs by reducing the need for a rental car. We are not going to be able to hold enough rooms for all 200-250 attendees (when you hold a room, you pay for it whether it gets used or not, so the financial risk there is huge). We are hoping to block about 60 rooms - so it’ll become important to book early. Once that block is sold, you’re on your own - although the same hotel may well have rooms at their normal rate, which is what we’re hoping will happen. Seventh, communications with registered attendees has been a huge PITA, mainly because some providers - like ForeFront Online Protection (FOLP) have a global block against EventBrite, our ticket company. Yeah, awesome. So for 2014 we’re going to use THIS blog category and our [Twitter feed][2] to “push” communications. We’ll still attempt to use email, but it’s just not reliable in this age of ultra-spam-blocking. So if you register, it will be your responsibility to check for updated information. After all, you’re supposed to be the big, smart IT professional, so you should be able to figure out how to do that . I’ll continue posting updates as information is available, and we hope you’ll start talking to the boss about the 2014 show. The 2013 show is sold out. As of right now, we are no longer to able process refunds for existing attendees, so we’re no longer processing the 2013 wait list. That means it’s time to start looking at the 2014 show. Any questions, drop ’em in the comments! Thanks! Don
