TechEd 2006: Call for technical session papers

TechEd 2006 planning has just begun and with that Im happy to announce that we are starting the call for technical papers a lot earlier than previous years.

TechEd 2005 was a huge success with the number of sessions more than doubling to over 150, and a total conference size numbering at 2,500 we have a high bar to hit. TechEd 2006 is set to be even bigger than this year with lots of products either in betas or release candidates such as Windows Vista and Longhorn Server and more. Its in August 2006 in Sydney!

If youre interested in presenting at one of Australia's premier conferences in the Developer, DBA or IT Professional Tracks (includes Security, Messaging, Server, Management etc), please read on!

Heres what Im looking for:

1. Interesting and informative content - practical information about "how to's" and "gotchas" are always great. Tips and Tricks sessions are also good. If you have a good project implementation in a new product and are willing to share what tripped you up or know a huge amount in a product and particularly if its around the new stuff then lets hear about it. Deeper knowledge the better!

2. Presentation Skills - I dont care if your'e the worlds biggest nerd, if you cant convey what you know then people will literally fall asleep. I need to know where you have presented before, the audience size and your review ratings.

3. Proof of your knowledge - while Im only asking here for a session title and an abstract to start with, I will end up asking for a paper to show me how much you know. That paper will be reviewed by other Microsoft people.

So whats in it for you? Kudos! Hero status! and a ticket to the rest of the conference!

Interested? So this is Stage 1. Fill in a contact form and send me a brief idea of what your session is about (Title and no more than 150 words) and where you have presented before and your review rating. Ill let know by April 2006 or earlier whether your session idea made it.

If you have never presented at a TechEd before, Stage 2 will be a short paper (no more than 3 pages) on what you intend to present on in more detail. I will be looking for proof of your deeper knowledge in this one. Im also keen to know if you have presented anywhere before and what your presentation scores were.

If you have presented before and received good scores (I will be checking!) then all I’m after is a short overview of your presentation so that we can make intelligent decisions of the basis of your session over another.
I should add that we don’t want this process to be arduous – we’re simply looking for the very best speakers and content that will help others learn and get value from the conference.

So get started and get your submissions in. Cutoff date is end of April 2006.

TechEd 2006...huge? Pah! It will be gigantic!

Updated: 27th February – added relaxations for Stage 2 around previous good TechEd presenters. Reduced the max paper length to 3 pages. Changed dates to April 2006 from March 2006.