Message from the Co-Chairs

Hello!
We wanted to take this opportunity to personally invite you to Microsoft's world headquarters in Redmond, Washington, for an all-new edition of TechMentor!

We've recorded three webcasts to guide you through how the event is structured, to offer tips on how to convince management you should attend, and to give you our insights on the content this year:

As always, this TechMentor will be the best event for deep-dive, relevant content focused on Microsoft-centric IT environments. We're providing a session agenda that consists primarily of 3-hour sessions, giving you 3x the face-time with expert presenters, 3x the educational time, and 3x the content. We're mixing in 75-minute breakout sessions to make sure you're up to speed on the latest new technologies, techniques, and best practices. And, of course, we're providing you with unique and fun opportunities to speak informally with our presenters, your colleagues, and our event team. There's really no better way to sharpen your tech skills and prepare yourself for the future.

This year, we are doing one thing just a bit differently. In the past, we've commonly organized our agenda around technologies, like PowerShell, Windows, and System Center. But as our datacenters become more and more integrated, and as we start to engage hybrid services, those technology lines get a bit blurred. So we've re-organized our content this year into tracks that we think better reflect how you use technology: Management Automation. Configuration Management. Troubleshooting. App and OS Deployment. Ethical Hacking. Even Soft Skills, to help you grow in your career. We think this revised focus will help us offer even better content that's even more applicable to your current, real-world needs.

You should know, however, that TechMentor is an independent conference. As such, we don't offer the marketing-laden "sessions" that many large events offer. You won't be dumped into a room with 10,000 other people for lunch. Instead, you'll find incredibly real-world sessions with speakers who look forward to discussion time and to answering your questions. We cap registration to ensure a boutique event that offers every attendee as much one-on-one time as they want, with numerous events geared specifically to engender small-group conversations.

We hope you'll take a minute to check out the conference agenda here. We're excited about the number of bring-your-own-laptop hands-on opportunities we've scheduled, and about the many high-powered presenters we've lined up. We hope to see you there!

Don Jones and Greg Shields
Co-Chairs, TechMentor Events