Ramping up the content's technical level from the 100 level to the 200 level cut our audience to about 60% of our level 100 audience. This time we only managed to bring out about 42 developers interested in how to code some custom SharePoint web parts. As one of the members of the presentation team, I felt we did an excellent job preparing for this presentation. Our slideshow had a custom template, our handouts were all printed in color on glossy paper, and we had a water bottle on the desks ready for everyone who sat down. To my mind, this was the most professional training event I've been to that didn't cost over a thousand dollars per attendee! I know I'm biased, but I'm highly impressed with myself and my team - mostly my team. Of course, none of what we've done would have been as easy as it's been without the continued support of our sponsor Intellinet. Two days before our presentation they surprised the presentation team with some very nice button down shirts with our logo embroidered above the pocket! Thanks guys! That's a really nice touch, and totally unexpected too!
Keith and Brendon did the presentation, and they did their best to cover all the material we had laid out in our allotted time. Unfortunately, we discovered that we can't actually squeeze 34 sides AND 14 demos into a single 2 hour presentation. We had to skip the deployment topic - how to get a web part into a production SharePoint site (as all our other demos used a development environment approach to display our custom web parts). We've got time to cover this in the Hands on Labs on Tuesday, however.
The reviews we got from everyone were very positive and we certainly appreciate all of the constructive criticism we've received. We're doing our best to make each presentation better than the last and we need your help to do it. Thanks to everyone who showed up - I hope you learned something that made it worth your time.
-- Matt Ranlett