Ahmed Salijee

WinFX!! I will attend that, as much possible of that. I also would like a short session on Enterprise Library.

It doesn't matter what developers that don't read blogs want, they are going to be moving to management soon enough anyway.

Personally I wouldn't mind the time difference. I think most people follow a certain track so it won't really affect them.  

Intros to WinFX will be good, but please make sure that the speaker/s has practical experience on the different "pillars" and that there are plenty of demos.
Maybe also a session to show off an app that leverages of all of them?

Agree with Thea.  Of all the DevDays I've been to, I've never switched tracks.

I agree with Simon, speakers with practical experience and not just theoretical knowledge is preferred. Demos are great, but not boring ones where the speaker actually types out the code line by line. Rather show us the important stuff and give us the full demos on disc to take home so those who want to play with it can do so while its fresh in their minds.

As for the misaligned track session times, well I don't have a problem with it.

Presentation of forthcoming technologies, in particular WinFX, new technologies, i.e. VSTS, and speakers with practical, not theoretical experience. It would also be great if we can see Africa compatible content, i.e. the technology positioned fore SA, not the T-line-littered 1st world. Personally I would also find feedback from all the various early adoption programs that partners and the community have been working on with Microsoft, to position the technology in our environment. Misaligned tracks are no problem as I seldom change tracks ... actually only if the content is highly theoretical.

I agree with Willy - it would be great to hear honest feedback from early adopters. Session aligment is no biggy to me either.

Thanks for all the feedback. But I will get a bit controversial (maybe I should do this as a different post!!). Devdays is an event where we aim to have lots of people - but you know that. In events like this where you have limited sessions you have to (to a large degree) aim for content that is applicable to a very wide audience. So while stuff like feedback is important it is not (again generally) something that you will see at a Devdays event. It is something you can look at for a TechED event or a smaller event.

Also it would be great to have people with practical experience but again I find a passionate and excellent speaker who can get the core message across is better in events like this. The "practical experience" guy who is not a good speaker - more often than not - gets more criticisism when there is a large audience. Also with early adopter technologies you are not likely to find too many people

So if anyone can find me a passionate knowledgable excellent speaker with practical experience and has feedback from early adopter programs PLEASE send them my way :-) :-)

I understand Ahmed, however what you will find is that the serious adopters of technology have been and will continue stearing clear of events such as TechEd and DevDays, as they want "real life trench" experience and information, not the "general" wide audience view. If this is acceptable to Microsoft then we have no problem ... however, we are already battling to convince our senior developers, analysts and architects to attend either event. We unfortunately lost a lot of influential people whom we convinced (with great effort) to attend the VSTS track last year ... unfoirtunately all came back disappointed and will not attend the event this year.

Willy - ask them why they were disappointed with the VSTS track. Chances are it was the speaker who actually had early adoption and practical experience but was not such a good speaker - he would have been great in a 1-few session. I fully agree that we must cater for "real life trench" sessions but you cannot do this when you have 100s of people in a room. This session should be a chalkboard session where the delivery format is different. You need dialog and whiteboards etc. So for example if we had a few small rooms at the venue we could look into hosting these smaller sessions at the same time.

Again if you can tell me where to find these people who can do the sessions you describe send them our way.

This should be a seperate blog ... the reason for disappointment with the last DevDays was not speaker related, in the contrary. This is a big topic, requiring some structured workshop and discussion. Bottom line is that if you want to address the larger audience and run Microsoft "wow" sessions then both TechEd and DevDays are fine as is. If you want to attract and convince the sceptical and often strategic IT'tonians of Microsoft technologies in the trenches, then both events require a change in content and style. I appreciate it is not an easy venture, however, I have literally given up trying to get our strategic architects and analysts to attend either event. In terms of where you can find such people ... there are communities and early adopters, many of who have a wealth of experience to share.

So we came to same conclusion :-) you need other events with a change in content and style. When I asked about finding people I was referring to excellent speakers with all of the other traits you mentioned. If you have people like this send then my way. For sessions that are more whiteboard etc orientated you do not always need the excellent speakers but you definitely need the experience and know how. We are looking at ways of addressing the different needs and formats etc but right now Devdays is focussed at the traditional pres style with lots of attendees