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Opening Party

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The SOA & Business Process Conference welcome reception sponsored by Microsoft Office was a lot of fun (those Office folks know how to throw a party! (Thanks Christian)). We had about 200 people in a large roped off section of Parlor Billiards. It’s a new establishment at Lincoln Square. It’s pretty nice. I’d certainly choose to hold another event there in the future.

So the venue was nice but the best part was the people of course. I spoke with a ton of old friends and new. Stephen Thomas stopped by to talk about the gig he just finished up at Pacific Life for Brad Sherrell (Edmund gave me the real scoop later). I hung out with Rod Da Silva from the International BizTalk User Group (and a BizTalk Server instructor for Developmentor) for a while. I had a great conversation with Scott Allen from Microsoft New Zealand. He taught me how to sell BizTalk. :^) Mark Berry (and the twins) are doing really well and the next time he comes to Redmond he promised to bring me a bushel of raspberries. Chris Vidotto and Bill Chestnut from the land of Aus were in the house. Jim Boyer and Chris Brakel from the Microsoft Canadian sub were around as well. Chris promised to take care of me when I head up to Toronto at the end of the month, so I’ve got that going for me. :^) QuickLearn was out in force! Greg, John, Dwight and Shelly were all there. My wife and I went to diner after the reception with Jon Flanders as well.

That’s just a sample of all of the cool folks I got to hang out with tonight. It was a great time. What a good start to the conference. I’ll be at the Microsoft conference center bright and early tomorrow reporting on the event as it unfolds. So good night for now!

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