Coasting to Connections
Abbie and I co-presented at the Microsoft Connections event in Corpus Christi on Tuesday. It was a great event. Lara Pryor was the presenter, she did a great job. While down there we went to the beach and on the way back hit San Antonio, more on that later.
So on Tuesday we showed up at The Cinema at about 7:30 and promptly setup our display table. Lots of Swag, our Small Business Specialist Banner, and some display items. fortunately, there was a light crowd at this event, so we had a chance to have some very good interactions with everyone. The crowd was reasonably technical and from quite diverse technical backrounds. there were a couple of technologists, a photographer, an Insurance person (role undetermined), just to name a few. Some were highly technical, in that they run Windows Server 2003 or Linux, while others were far less technical, and more interested in function. We did a presentation highlighting the Microsoft Small Business Stack, in a customer deployment story. the solution was based on Small Business Accounting, Small Business Server, and Office SBE. Abbie and I are well versed on this story, as we have done it many times over, so it was a walk in the park for us. Lara did a great job of allowing me the ability to 'assist' in answering questions from the audience. I say assist, because she definatly could answered all the questions, but diverting the question to me, allows the crowd to see me (the Partner) as a goto resource. this lent alot of credibility to Annabel Watters, PC. During the break, we broke out the old, and when I say old, I mean pushing 5 years, laptop, and fired up Small Business Accounting. As it was not part of the Connections Event, it was not highlighted, but many in the audience were interested, and after having seen Small Business Server 2003 in action in the Theater, they wanted to see Small Business Accounting. We walked people through the basic screens and then through some of the 'integrated' features. for example the ability to mark time/appointments as billable and submit it from outlook, and have it show up in SBA. This was abig time ooooo, aaaaaa, oooooohhhhhh moment. We gave away 2 copies of Office Small Business Management Edition. And my son Ian went down front to draw names for the other prizes. Overall, this was a great event, Thank you Lara, and Thank you, to the event team as a whole!!!
We went down to Corpus on Monday, arriving in town just a micro storm was slamming the town, about 5:00pm or so. By the time we got to the hotel, the rain had subsided, and by the time we got to the room, the sun was starting to re-emerge. After dinner, we drove over to Padre and stopped at Mustang Beach. Ian LOVED it!!! We saw a starfish, and a baby that was wading far too far out into the water, but loving every second of it. We also saw some Pelicans, loping (while flying, going as slow as physically possible, and exending as little energy as possible, while still staying in flight), in much the same way as old burro goes to market.
Then on Tuesday after the event we drove up to San Antonio. A word of caution to anyone calling and asking for a reservation at a La Quinta in San Antonio. At first I asked if there was one downtown (there's 12 across town), and was told no, and the reservation guy started to rattle off locations. As it turns out there is one, howeer it is labled 'Old Mission District' or something to that effect. Well, my not being from around there, and the reservation guy not being from around there, we ended up staying at a La Quinta out on I-35 northeast of downtown. Not a bad place, we got our Laptops setup, and Ian and I went swimming. then we headed out to The Riverwalk, always a great time, Dinner and a tour on the river. We also got 5 minutes in the Alamo (the Mission, of the mission district referenced above!!!) before it closed for the day. not enough time to devote to that, certainly. When we got back to the Hotel, the Internet Connection was down. I walked through the usual suspects, troubleshot the wireless, got good signal, just never an IP. Called up the front desk, ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring, well that was not working, so I walked up there...I asked about the interent and was told, oh, the Maintenence guy is gone for the day...WHAT!!! JUST WALK BACK THERE AND (calm down bill, it's not the end of the world!!!), please can you just recycle the wireless device? Well she was new, and untrained on these things as we later found out. We did not, however get our internet acccess back on until after were checking out, the next morning. This little lack of connectivity cost me a whole day of work, things that I had put off until I could sit down and concentrate on them in the Hotel Room, could not be done.
Now, for anyone who knows me, the best part of the trip, was not getting a single minte of World Cup Round of 16 matches in. They played the games, and my DVR at home recorded them religiously. But since getting back, I have been balls-to-the-wall with work, and likely will not get a chance to watch any of it, until at least Sunday or Monday, by which time Qurterfinals will have been played...oh well, the trip was well worth it, we had fun, we were productive, and we planted the seeds for future opportunities...