Tag 2010

I promised myself I wouldn’t write something on the Census.. this is after I initially silently complained about the LETTER I received informing me that the Census is coming soon. (Although I did do some pretty extensive searching on the cost of Permit G-58 items, and what the likely cost to us for that single mailing was)

And then I got the actual census, riddled with inaccuracies and insanity – I’m sure if I mail in my Census now.. it’ll be invalid since it speaks about “April 1 2010” as the date I get to choose who ‘lives’ here.   But even that… I simply tweeted and vocally complained.. but I didn’t actually go so far as to write this post.

However, I can remain silent no longer.   … Why you might ask?

I received this in the mail today.

Seriously? Seriously? I mean, SERIOUSLY FRANCINE?!  WTF IS THIS?!@?

That’s right.   Not only did I receive one piece of post which effectively said “Save the date”, and then I received “the date” and now I’m given… not a tutorial.. not anything which WASN’T disclosed in previous mailings… No.  I’m not even sure WTF this is about and why my tax dollars and TREES, screw the tax dollars, my frakking TREES are going to waste for this utter BS. (Yes, first time I’ve ever used the acronym BS)

I totally get that you need to do this Census.  I’m willing to let it slide that in the year 2010. What’s that? the Year twoooooooo thousand and ten.. you don’t have a DIGITAL option, yet all of your forms you mail are effectively keyed to individual.. but no, I get that.   But do you seriously need to SPAM my frakking home mailbox? Destroy millions of trees? Make me write stupid blog posts?

So what will come next? Can I expect to receive a swimsuit catalog of the Census?   Will there be a “Best of the Census”, or a continuous revisiting of this experience again?   I hope I don’t see YET another mailing to come on this same topic, but we’ll see…

I’m not sure what the cost of this is to the tax payers (hey, that’s me!) but I thought TWO mailings was a bit severe.  Three is downright idiotic.

Though for what it’s worth… I’d love to hear if you agree, or disagree even, especially disagree! 

Yea I think that’s pretty clear in the title though I think it bears repeating!

This years TechEd North America will be hosted in none other than New Orleans, LA! – Which frankly is a GREAT city to host a TechEd in (I went ~10 years ago in NOLA – Good times!)

What this year does have on track for those of you looking to attend are – talking points and ways to convince your boss!

This actually takes you to a web-form which will generate off an email and send it to your boss :)

Now from a personal perspective, the benefit and value of this promotion is pretty severe.  I attended TechEd NA 2009 (Maybe you met me! I personally talked to ~3000 people!) And with that said, the attendance was dismal as far as I was concerned! Not to mention there was a great imbalance of Developers compared to IT Pro’s!    So the value of convincing your boss is and should be very important – considering the fact that VMWorld had 3-4x the number of participants yet worldwide FAR more people work within the space of Microsoft Technologies (Hey, I love VMware too, but you’d think we’d atleast get a decent attendance!)

I’ll be ‘convincing’ my boss, and so should you!   So, I’ll see you at TechEd (By hook or by crook :)) And what better time to convince than when you can save $300! :)

Below are some sections cut/pasted from the registration site, but the important lesson here is – Yay! Early Registration is now available! Get it your registration on and get your gifts under the wire!  As I I don’t know about you, but I like me some free prizes if I’m already planning on going to an event – Whether for networking, education, or just swag collecting and good parties. :)

You will be asked to create an EMC World 2010 username and password as you register for this event. Please note that accounts created for previous EMC World conferences or your Powerlink credentials cannot be used to register. EMC reserves the right and discretion to verify your relationship with EMC and to determine if your attendance is appropriate. For registration assistance, contact EMC World Registration Support

Early Bird Registration
Attendees who register for a conference registration package on or before February 28th, 2010 @ 11:59 p.m. MST and pay the conference fee of $1,895 on or before April 26, 2010 @ 11:59 p.m. MST will be eligible to receive either an iPod touch, an Iomega ScreenPlay Plus, or a complimentary evening guest pass to EMC World. Click here for full terms and conditions.
Eligible attendees will be able to claim their early bird gifts at the onsite registration counters. Details will be provided prior to your arrival in Boston for the conference.

You know the model – If you plan on attending something anyway, may as well register early and get some swag out of the deal!

So, don’t forget – Get out there, get registered and get connected!