For some reason, as I fly from LAX to ORD, I cannot seem to find any of my photos I thought I took of the masses who welcomed the SWAG Express, err.. the Career Express as it pulled in to TechEd, but I still have some after-swag-attack photos, so I can definitely share those.
Previously on the Bus, on Day 10, we had an enjoyable night out on the town to get back to the bus by 3:45AM for Departure to get in to LA. We made it back literally just in time to grab our bags from the hotel, board the bus, and definitely in my case – to go to sleep.
Awaking 30minutes from the Convention center, I made sure to alert the Tweetosphere of our location(s) so they could prep for a Swagtastic arrival, which they frankly did quite a good job of relieving us of swag!
The type of community and engagement was just great, and amazingly well received. People immediately entered into conversation, catching up with old friends or meeting new ones.
I had the opportunity to attend a session too! My first and only session for TechEd09, was Ken Rosen’s session on MCITP is the new MCSE, where you (me) need to watch out when you attend sessions.. you just might get called up to answer a community question ;)
With the bus tour at it’s end, the one thing that was everyone’s mind when talking about it was, asking how it was. While I will do a full post-mortem and additional high-lights, here is a brief description of the bus tour. zOMFG! Amazing! That’d be the first point to say about an event and experience like this. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to have your eyes opened to not only aspects of community you may have never seen, but to see that which is otherwise perceived as uniform being implemented so differently across communities in the north, the south, east and west. Things are done in unique and interesting ways in every type of CPLS, ITA, and even in training businesses from coast to coast.
When the bus tour was announced, I was gangbusters set on trying to win this, and this is even before I would realize the full depth of the experience, but once I did I yearn for it even more. I evangelized about this opportunity constantly within the community (and my local community) to encourage them to take advantage of this, because while this may come along again, you’ll never have been part of the first one, and that first makes all the difference!
I look forward to something like this being done again (EMEA?!:)) and definitely the opportunity to get out in front of more members of the community, helping them connect with each other and just grow, grow grow! The friendships, relationships and all the people I met cannot be replicated, cannot be bought and the experiences will be stories and legends to tell for years to come!
I want to thank all of you for following along and reading of our adventures cross country, cross community, and for making an investment in yourself through education.
