I must say that once again I am amazed at what a professional production the H&T people put on. I am happy to say that in terms of real training value for the time and money, its a great deal for anyone in the area. I really enjoy how many of my greatly skilled associates speak there -- not a slacker in the bunch.

I'll be posting my presentations shortly, but here's a summary:

....The Admin Client
-- Do this one first, and had an OK time doing it. Its not new material but still applicable. Reaction in the audience was positive if a bit subdued which I think more accurate reflects the material than did the overwhelming response at lotusphere last year. Overall it went well but was otherwise SSDD.

....The new face of messaging
-- I really had fun with this, and was actually a bit nervous to do it. This is the most "squishy" presentation I've ever made. The subject matter really boils down to my own thoughts on the current issues with messaging and what I think the future looks like in terms of resolution -- but social and technical. Looking at the slides will convey some of the thoughts but I knew going in this would be one of those you can only carry off if you put all your effort into "speakership" and really get the group to understand and empathize with what you're saying. Having such a great crowd helped.

...The Rich Client
-- Hands down this was the second hardest presentation I've ever had to do. To present new technology I don't actually have, to an audience skeptical about that technology overall, but which happens to include the man in charge of notes development. Thank you, Bill Hume, for being a good sport while I poked more than a little fun at your marketing people. I have had great comments back about this presentation (thanks Rich for publishing some). Maybe more examples and images for Baltimore.

...D7 meets DB2
-- As expected, interest was high, and this went pretty well. Not enough ram in the laptop to do quite everything live, but we did most of it in the demos pretty much without problem. I'm working on squeezing out that last bit of ram for Baltimore's show. A surprise to everyone there but me, was that we could finish quickly and move to a discussion format of Q&A. This is, quite frankly, because the integration is so seamless that it appears obvious. The tools are straightforward in the very few places where they are needed, and otherwise are totally wrapped into the product so little explanation is needed. Its the implication of these features that is exciting. Some great questions at the end, and I'll try to get answers for those I didn't know -- gives me more to add in for the Baltimore conference.

Well, after the conference may of us were invited to dinner with and then back to Gab & Tim's house for drinks. Great fun, and they were great sports to open their normally quite home to all of us. A late night, so I've slept in till quite late, and should be more than able to drive home when I land in Boston at what will be 2am London time.

See you all later.