Given the importance that technology has in any organisation, our IT Manager David Brooks and myself were sent to Microsoft TechEd 2010 in Berlin. Our goal was to learn, research and connect with like minded people and to bring back new ideas and technology. Like many trips, there was not much time left to explore. This was a shame as my little sister is half German (a long story!) which has created a heightened interest for me in anything German.
As with most things in life, the IT world has its own fashions and this year the buzz was surrounding cloud computing, virtualization and the new Windows Phone 7. The phone stand was very popular and was attracting a large number of people waving their business cards in the faint chance of winning one. Unfortunately, I was not one of the lucky people, better luck next time I hope!
Now that we are back in the office, it is time to put what we have learnt into practice. For me this is focused on our client facing systems in order to allow us to integrate our translation work-flow directly with our clients. Unfortunately, this is not a one size fits all solution, serious customisation is often needed, utilising a wide variety of technologies. This is why events such as TechEd are so useful, you can talk about the technical aspects of your solution with other experts who can point you in the direction of resources you may not have been aware of.
Finally, although not unexpected, the entire conference was conducted in English. Despite the location, German was nowhere to be heard and only seen on signs in the Messe conference centre. I’d be curious to know how other delegates who do not have English as their first language felt about this?
Hopefully I’ll be able to report back from TechEd USA in Atlanta next year… wink wink 😉
Great post Charlie!! Maybe you will have a new Windows Phone 7 for Christmas…keep faith 🙂