THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

I received an offer from Microsoft to attend Microsoft's World Wide Partner Conference in Washington DC, July 11-17, 2010.  The offer included ticket to the event as well as travel and lodging reimbursement.

Under current Federal Trade Commission guidelines for bloggers I am required to disclose when an entity has provided funds or products that may impact my independence or view of their product.  I'll be the first to admit that I struggled with deciding to go.   I feel that when I pay for something I give a more honest opinion of it.  I honestly would not be attending the WWPC without this offer.  I'd be remotely watching the events via the Digital WPC site (http://digitalwpc.com/ ) and setting up a twitter search for #WPC10 to vicariously "watch" and get a feel for the pulse of the conference.   Not to mention... July... in Washington DC is probably going to be hot and muggy.  If you think going to conferences means you get to sleep in and party all night, not for this gal.  Breakfast is at 7 a.m. and the daily events start at 8:30.  More often than not I come back from conferences more tired with all the meetings, attending sessions and labs that you want to fit in during the timeframe.

But I ultimately decided to take Microsoft up on the offer as I felt that attending in person I could ask the questions that you the blog readers would want asked.  I'm hoping that in attending I can give the remote attendee a better understanding of the changes to the partner program and the changes in the marketplace.   Now, keep in mind that I found out after I said yes but before I booked travel that I have to be in the office on Monday the 11th so I'm taking a late flight from Fresno, and then flying a redeye from San Francisco to Washington Dulles, so anything on Monday I won't be able to attend.  I expect to sleep on the plane but if the blogging on that Tuesday the 12th is a bit rambling, put it down to lack of sleep will ya?

So here's my ask of people reading this post:

1.  Send me the questions you want answered.  What questions do you have regarding what Microsoft's plans are for the cloud?  What about the SBSC plans?  If you were going, what questions would you have?

2.  While I'm there blogging, tell me what sessions you'd go to if you were there -- http://www.mspartnerconference.com/Topic/List  Help me build my schedule and tell me the sessions you'd like to get a more first hand experience of.

3.  Small and Mid sized partner category is one that I've already looked over for potential sessions.  Lots of cloud sessions for sure.  What other sessions would you attend if you were me?

Help me make this a more interactive digital experience of the WPC for you.  So you tell me, what session would you like to see if you were going?  Needless to say I'll be blogging from the event.

Microsoft has made no requirements that I blog or post anything, just offered to send me to the event.