Now that was a semester I won't forget.
To top off the last 5 months of college and Career Factor, I had my graduation on in May and then flew straight to TechEd NA. TechEd was an experience. :) The week in Atlanta was everything I expected, plus a little more. It was absolutely amazing to get to finally meet all the other participants on the show. We truly became family during this trip. I wished it was a longer trip, or maybe that we could have got to hang out more after the TechEd sessions were over. The whole week was "go-go-go". The sessions were led by some really great MCTs that took their week to come teach a session on whatever they are specialized in. The Expo was huge and you could feel 10,000 people in the area of the convention center.
More excited than the sessions, the Expo, were the people.
My favorite part worth mentioning were the unique people we met that were able to sit in a room full of other people that spoke the same computer language, whether they were from another country, man or woman, young or old. Nobody had to be "caught up" on conversation. Everyone seemed to have a good time! Many restaurants would be very confused at our seated party because we all had dramatically different accents.
It's now June, and I have already had 3 interviews and I am planning more. I've surprised myself by finishing an interview with confidence that I've impressed the interviewer. I've become a professional in the last few months. It's been rewarding to look back and see how far I've come. From the business classes at my university, to TechEd, to emailing multiple people a day with Outlook, it has been rewarding. Meeting fans face to face has been cool too! Some people would want pictures, some would just love to meet you because your fresh out of college and probably a little amazed by the event. Either way, it was neat and humbling.
Thanks to everyone that I met for being unique, loving, and genuine with their beliefs. I very much enjoyed the trip at TechEd, and the experience I had with Career Factor. Erwin, Steve, Simon, Bojan, Rabeb, Caroline, Eddie, and Neil - it has truly been a pleasure.
Thanks Microsoft for a trip of a lifetime. The certification process could not have been better, and I'm not required to say this, but I really enjoyed it. I hope we all get the opportunity to run into each other again, or even start our own businesses. Let's change the world.
Thank you for a trip that was unforgettable,
Kevin
So, here we are. At the end of a wonderful ride. I made some great new friends, and I'm headed down the path toward an incredible career. I couldn't have asked for a better experience. My only disappointment is in myself, for not making more of this incredible opportunity. To all of you future Career Factor Participants, be sure to milk it for everything it's worth!
I had a great time, and I look forward to a better future for me and my family. There's not much left to say, except "Thank You."
This is the last post for Career Factor, at least as a Career Factorian for the year 2011. So it has to be special and not about me!
I feel blessed and lucky, thanks to career factor I had the most amazing 6 months in my life and I know I’m going to get more.
The journey has been amazing thanks to those extraordinary people:
Erwin Chan: I can’t thank you enough. You were and still taking care of us.
You were so helpful and comprehensive. And I enjoyed the CNN Tour with you
Melissa Bathum: I see a lot of me in you!!! You make people think that you never get tired and you are full of energy. Thank you for the great parties
Dana Calleja: keep smiling, I love that smile.
Erica Thomas: I wish we met, who knows may be one day. Thank you for the great work you are doing for Career Factor and the cast.
MS Learning team: keep up the good work. I appreciate the great support and motivation you are giving me.
Heather Ackmann: I’m so happy that I had the chance to meet you and had the “ Women in tech “ lunch with you Thanks to you I do have a good CV ( I know that because with that CV there are opportunities … )
Martin and his friend (I forget the name: S): Thank you for the great videos; I love the wrap up video. Thank you for the nice evening we all had together and Martin thank you for teaching me Tango
I don’t want to forget about anyone …If you are involved in Career Factor, you should know that I’m more than grateful
Last but not least: Career Factor Cast!
Back in November, when I applied to Career Factor, It was never in my intention to have 7 more friends from around the world, with different backgrounds and different visions.
Today, I do have 7 amazing friends:
Bojan: keep teasing me, I know you love me MASTER
Caroline: my roomie <3<3
Kevin: enjoyed hanging out with you.
Simon: It was a pleasure failing my exams with you
Eddie: I’m happy for what happened to that Iphone
Neil: Good luck and I’m sure you’ll make a great MVP
Steve: I’m still waiting for Tam Tams from Australia.
My dear Career Factor Followers, you helped me a lot during this journey, so thank you
Now it’s my turn to give, stay tuned for more stories from me about tech , learning and certifications.
The journey just begins…
From Tunisia with Love
Rabeb
Other articles in this series:
The recently announced changes to the Microsoft Certified Master program for Exchange mean that you don't need to attend training in Redmond in order to get the qualification. But, you will want to! I know, I know, the issue of $18,500 is not something that can be easily brushed aside, but hear me out. If you read previous posts on this blog or posts from other Masters, you will have read about the depth and quality of training, the incredible experience of meeting the top guys in your chosen field and how difficult the exams and qualifying lab are, even with the support system behind you.
Consider, if you will, the alternative. Going through 2000 pages of pre-reading material on your own, then probably double that will form the material for self-study, preparing for the exam on your own, building your own practice environment and not having anyone to bounce ideas off. Plus, the exam, the material and the qualifying lab are still going to cost good money. I'm definitely not alone in believing that this will be a very hard task to complete. Don't get me wrong, the change is good, it opens up opportunities for more people to attempt MCM. And, more MCMs are needed. But, if you are in a position where you are choosing between two options - choose training. And if you're wondering whether it will pay off - my LinkedIn profile link is on the side - work it out for yourself.
There have been only a few hundred MCMs awarded across all five Microsoft technologies over the last eight years. The Exchange community, which spawned the whole Master certification from its original Ranger program, is the largest. But, that is largely irrelevant. The spirit of the community is the same across all five technologies in the MCM program. For example, in my case, the greatest influence on the decision to join the Master program was by a post on the blog of Brent Ozar, a SQL MCP and MVP - and his experience is typical whether you complete the SQL, Exchange, AD, SharePoint or Lync MCM programs. More to the point, I spoke to a number of MCMs before, during and after my rotation and every one of them listed the community as one of the greatest benefits.
The most obvious example of the benefits that this community brings, is the membership of the MCM distribution list. Counted amongst its members are all the Rangers and Masters from the last nine years, as well as members of the Exchange Product Group and Microsoft's Technology Adoption Program. So, in one place you have pretty much the people that influence features of Exchange, produce the product itself and then deploy it in some of the most complex examples in the world. When you take into account that something like 50-60 messages are exchanged on the list every day, you can imagine the volume of hands-on, real-world, high-end experience you get to share in. Whether this is about best practices, performance queries, bug discovery or just to remind yourself of a specific feature - the list is the first port of call for most Masters when looking for answes.
Apart from email distribution list, the community is very active in other areas, too. At recent TechEd in Atlanta, there were about 40 Masters from all technologies. We had MCM/MVP events, dinners and parties organised. There are also special training sessions organised for existing Masters. Upgrade courses are done at a discount. We all get to participate in developing new content and exams for the next generations of MCMs.
The training and exams provide the initial Master-level knowledge, but through community, that knowledge is developed far beyond the mere certification.
All in, once you're in, you will not be bored.
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Six months ago, I applied for a place on a new Microsoft Learning venture, Career Factor.
Being chosen as the successful applicant for the IT Manager role was just the beginning of what for me, has been an amazing journey.
My fellow travelers, who started out as just names on an email have now become good friends. Good luck with your future careers, whichever road it may lie along. I miss you all already.
My Team who could not muster a certification between them have had a great opportunity to further their careers and better themselves by being given access to learning resources and certification opportunities. At the time of typing, i have 3 members with exams booked and another 2 getting ready plus Dan who has now passed exam # 2 (70-536) to become a TS. Once again, primarily due to the opportunity and encouragement offered by Microsoft Learning and Career Factor.
Myself, well I've enjoyed every minute of it, from freaking out Erwin with my "Locked Up" Tweet, my rant video after failing my exam for the second time all the way up to our TechEd extravaganza. I've picked up some nuggets of information, some new skills, made some great connections on the way through and achieved my goal of retaining Partner Network benefits for my employer, albeit not exactly as originally planned.
I can't let my wrap up post go by without mentioning the people who made Career Factor possible.
Finally, over the last few months, I have had the opportunity to connect with so many people from both inside Microsoft and from the IT industry in general who have either shown an interest in what we are doing or have been assisting us in achieving our goals in someway. To all those people, who are far too many to name, thank you very much.
Here's to a Career Factor Reunion at TechEd 2012!! - Where are they now...?
For the final time, this has been Simon Davis and this has been my Career Factor.
Thanks for reading
/SiD
Hi All,
As Expected, it's taken me a while to get down my thoughts on the final day of Tech-Ed. The day started like all the others with a long hike to breakfast followed by an equally long hike back to the Hands on Lab area.
Amazingly, this was my first opportunity to have some time to visit the HOL's, which by past experience are always a good place to follow up on the sessions that you have attended as they tend to give you the chance to put into practise and see for yourself what has been said in the session. I spent an hour or two familiarizing myself with the Visual Studio Test Manager product which I intend to start pushing the team towards for our next release.
Following on from the HOL, it was time to write up Day 3's exploits which can be found strangely enough in the Day 3 summary post!
Beyond that, it was an opportunity to finally hit the expo hall and SWAG up. Never have i been at TechEd for so long and had so little SWAG. That was soon put right as Molk and I cruised the floor looking for the goods and also taking the chance to chat to a number of vendors who had products of interest, I had a task to fulfill from the office to go and have a chat with the guys at DoubleTake to establish a solution for our geographically dispersed database continuity of service conundrum.
After a late lunch, we headed back towards the Microsoft Learning booth to mingle some more with the attendees, unfortunately, on the way we noticed that the Guitar Hero and Kinect setup was available to "evaluate" so we spent a little time learning all about the capabilities of the XBox Kinect technology and how it interprets your body movements into game play!!!
Finally, after spending some time at the booth, with weary legs we said our farewells to the great folks from Microsoft Learning and headed back to the Hotel, riding Marta for one last time, to ready ourselves for the closing party.
Being a TechEd veteran, I was a little unsure what we were going to get, was it going to be a high like the Orlando Universal Studios party, or a low like the LA in the conference centre one. In the end, it was in between. The Georgia Aquarium and Coke World area of Atlanta was our venue for the evening and it proved to be entertaining enough. The food was excellent, the drink as expected and the opportunity to visit these attractions FOC was great. Probably a 7.5/10 as parties go.
11pm came around soon enough and we made our way back to the hotel for a nightcap, or two, or three..... The barman had seen enough of us and kicked us out early complaining that he had been working late every night! so we headed up to Bojan's abode for the family brew - Raikia. Words cannot describe how potent that stuff was.
With the hours of first departures growing ever nearer it was time to say our goodbyes to those who had the early flights. For those who did not, we enjoyed breakfast and a day of leisure on the Friday as we left a few at a time to finally leave the Molk as he started, alone in Atlanta.
I cannot put into words how much fun I had at TechEd this year, "Work hard, Play Hard" has always been my motto when attending these events and I have to say that this one blew all the previous ones out of the water. I hope that the rest of the cast enjoyed the experience as much as I did, and a big shout out to Microsoft Learning for making it all possible.
That's all from me on TechEd, I will probably have one final post up next week primarily to wrap things up and thank everyone involved in making Career Factor happen.
We have one final pair of Tweet Chats scheduled for Wednesday 1st June 9am PDT and Thursday 2nd June 6pm PDT, if you have any questions to ask us, be sure to join in.
Finally, Microsoft Learning are giving you the chance to win your own Career Factor Experience, see here
Until then, Thanks for reading and so long everyone.
With Career Factor winding down, what better way to see how far the cast has come than by listening to them describe their journeys in their own words? Over the next few days we'll present an interview with each cast member. First up: Kevin!
A few weeks ago Kevin spoke with IT expert Stephen Ibaraki about his college job, his career aspirations, and how Microsoft Certification will help him bridge the two. Listen to the interview or read the highlights at Stephen's website.
Check out Kevin's interview
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Another day dawns and the career factor gang were no where to be seen for a 7am start from the hotel.
Breakfast was good (welcome back hot food) and i barely noticed the hike back to my first session of the day, an exam cram for 70-432 SQL maintenance and deployment.
I've had on the backburner a wish to try and get at least the TS certifications for SQL 2008 (both Admin and Dev) if only to be able to talk no a par with candidates when we are looking for SQL skills. I found the session to be pretty informative and a good guide to what to expect in the exam. Something that really jumped out at me during the talk was the 80/80 comment - Exams are notionally developed to target skills being used by 80% of the target audience 80% of the time, a reasonable target, but not one that i was seeing hit when discussions were held around the room regarding technologies that were being given a high coverage factor in the exam yet the room was not using them, with this and my experience with the developer certifications I have to question how exactly they are determining these usage figures.
After that it was on to the show floor to spend some time at the Microsoft Learning area chatting with some of the people who put together the exams and also writing yesterday's post, my major career factor commitments are over for the week, but I still feel obliged to blog regularly whilst we are here.
Highlight of the afternoon, a developer session, a tool that i have had my eye on for a while now, SketchFlow and i'm completely sold on it. In a nutshell it allows a developer/designer to quickly mock up a sample UI for an application complete with transitions and data to allow for evaluation/proof of concepts etc, this then coupled with the viewer allows for feedback to be given by stakeholders without wasting a lot of time on writing the code that would normally be required to achieve similar in Visual Studio. Best of all, no chance of it being taken and shipped in its current form as has happened with previous concept applications.
Our attempts to dine at the Hard Rock Cafe before the evenings Springboard party were thwarted by it being completely closed for a private party. Worked out pretty well really as instead we hit the Legal Seafood restaurant. Mighty fine food, just make sure you have a reservation and be prepared to wait if its busy.
Onwards and downwards to the Springboard gig, (well actually upwards as the party was on the top floors of the same building). Twinges of regret that we had just eaten so well as the food here was good as well, we mingled with the crowds, Rabeb had a photo call with The Mark Russinovich and then we moved on to try and find a place for Caroline to watch the hockey.
We ended up at the Quest party at Halo, a club right by our hotel, no food, but plenty of drink and goood pours! Final port of call for the evening was the hotel bar where those who were lasting the night put the world to right.
Only one day to go and it's the big closing party night. I really don't want this week to end, the connection that we as a group have made here means that I know already how much I'm going to miss each and every one of my fellow cast members, we came together just 6 months ago with a passion for technology and learning, we met for the first time a mere 5 days ago yet I feel as though we have been friends for life and really hope that we stay in touch with each other when this is all over. Thank you all I've had a fantastic journey with you.
That's all from me for now, I expect it will be the weekend or early next week before i get a chance to post my final Teched update. Until then i raise a glass to all those involved with Career Factor and to each and everyone of my followers.
Hello,
The couple past few days were amazing, i can't even find words to describe it. So here are the highlights:
* I met the career factor cast: those guys are GREAT, it's like we know each other since ever.
* TechEd is AMAZING: this is my first time attending TechEd, it's a big event. I'm enjoying attending different sessions mostly about Windows Phone, Silverlight, Azure and certifications.
I had the chance to meet Scott Hanselman, Ginny Caughey, Charles Petzold, Pete Brown and others. It's a great opportunity to me to hear from them and ask them about technology.
* I'm visiting the states for the first time: I'm enjoying my trip, people are nice here . USA is so different from my country , i'm discovering a new world.
If you want to know what i think about this world follow me on twitter @othmaniRabeb and you will find out my #FirstTimeInUS #Facts
So, I just got back from TechEd Atlanta, having to leave early due to obligations at work. And more impactfully, having to leave my new friends, my fellow Career Factor participants and the whole Microsoft Learning Family! I have to say that this was one of the best experiences I have had in a very long time!
Where do I begin...well, my first day there, as I'm unpacking in my hotel room, I get a call from Steve Molkentin ("The Molk", as he is affectionately called), welcoming me to Atlanta, and inviting me to dinner with himself, Kevin Dickens, and the beautiful Caroline Wellinger. It was kind of surreal finally meeting these people who I felt I already knew, but had never been in their physical presence. With that said, we hit it off immediately, as if we were old friends! We were soon joined be Erwin Chan of Microsoft, the man heading up Career Factor, and then came the equally as beautiful Rabeb Othmani, whose flight was an hour late, but yet she still managed to join us for dinner, despite being exhausted, having flown all day from Tunisia. Bojan Nenadic joined us soon thereafter, and our final arrival was my roommate, Neil Simon. Dinner was great, and as we retired for the evening, I felt that we all were in for a fantastic week.
We met early the next morning in the lobby and headed to the CNN Center to get registered and do a little video taping. After that, we all attended a Braves baseball game, where some of our overseas friends were introduced to America's REAL favorite pastime...hot dogs! The game was a blast, especially given that the Braves beat the Phillies 3-2 in dramatic fashion. After the game, we had a few drinks, and then headed back to the hotel, where yours truly called it a night (I'm not a young man any more!), while others partied into the night. It was a great day, and we all looked forward to the Keynote Presentation the next morning, which was the official start of TechEd.
Being new to TechEd, I had now expectations of the Keynote Presentation, and I must say, I was a little blown away. There were laser lights, stadium screens, and techno-music filling the few empty spaces of an auditorium already overflowing with 10,000 people! The technology that was showcased was very impressive, especially how Kinect technology is being used in the medical industry, as well as in astronomy with the Worldwide Telescope. Using Kinect a user can virtually explore the entire Universe by simply waving ones hands!
However, the stand-out event for me was dinner with the Microsoft Learning staff. During the delicious meal, we answered questions, gave our opinions, and shared our thoughts about the Career Factor experience, all of which was video taped. It was there that I decided to become a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT). With input from these folks, I realized that I could combine my love of Technology with my love of Teaching as an MCT. It was a real "Ah ha!" moment for me. Moreover, the MCT community is so warm and embracing that they made me feel welcomed already! Wish me luck as my Microsoft journey continues!
Be sure to look for videos and pictures to be posted soon. Until then, au revoir!
Wrap-Up
Last night I got to go adventure to some sweet parties around town and bump into other techies. I met people from all over the world and from different countries. That was sweet! Shout out to my Canadians that throw great parties!! I did not expect TechEd to be like this, but hey, it is an amazing way to get to network and watch other people.
But that was only a small portion of yesterday, we had a special interview reunion session with Edge On Site and the website is http://edge.technet.com Our reunion video should be up very soon! How cool!
Plans for today
Going to stop by several booths, catch up with people I've already met, and ask what it's like to be on the other end of the expo booths - just chatting with people.
I'm going to a Cram4Exam session at 12:00 - 1:00 and then I think it doesn't hurt to attend a Windows Phone App building session. (I'd like to at least try the developer side of things even though it's not my thing)
For tonight, the Springboard party! Pictures and other things up soon. See you all around on Twitter - something that is really taking over #msteched
Goood morning everyone, it's time for an update from Teched on the career factor happenings from day 2.
This year's visit to Teched is a little different from my previous ones as rather than having the primary focus being about my learning and "training", it is instead first and foremost about career factor and so for the first part of the week at least I have not been as busy with session attending as i might normally have been. I'm starting to think this is actually a good thing, as although i am missing out on a lot of good information, I know that after the event, it's all going to be available to view online. Better still I've reached mid-morning Wednesday and not suffered from the usual conference information overload whereby after 2 to 2 and a half days of solid sessions you brain just goes into meltdown trying to take in more and more information without having the time for it to sink in.
So, back to day 2, and my session review.
DPR301 - Executable Requirements Let You Play More Foosball - An interesting first session of the day, biggest downer was that it couldn't really have been any further away from breakfast another 15 minute hike and i'm really starting to base my session selection around distance to walk! The session itself was a bit of a mixed bag for me, I certainly like the idea behind what the methodology is trying to achieve and the idea of capturing requirements in such a specific way certainly appeals in terms of it providing evidence that what is being developed meets the given requirements, but I guess that for me the real question is where the requirements are going to be coming from, personally, I can't see it being anywhere other than myself and my team capturing them following discussions with our "customer" or business unit. It is very apparent that currently our customer does not have the skills to be able to capture the requirements clearly and I would be nervous about pushing too far down this route with out having some proof of concept/benefits exercise first.
DPR202 - Agile Estimation - I cheated a little on this one, having caught this session previously at TechEd Europe last year, i took advantage of the live stream to keep an eye on this one whilst composing yesterdays blog. It also save me a mile walk each way!!
DPR209 - Fundamental Design Principles For UI Designers - This one really captured my imagination, the presenter came across well and the sample UI application looked fantastic. As a part of the next release of our product, we are looking at a UI refresh and seeing this interface in action really got me thinking as to what we can achieve and how the small things really make a big difference. Good take away from this session for me and I hope that the information picked up will be put to good use in the coming months.
In writing this, It's struck me that my role really is changing, the sessions that i am taking on board are far less "developer" focussed and much more targeted at the Architect. Maybe this has something to do with my recent exam failings, I'm just not hands on enough anymore. Chatting to some of the great folks at Microsoft learning over the last few days this has been coming up in conversation and it has been suggested that I may have more success with the Professional exam as that is more relevant to my role. Thinking back to my 2.0 certification, this comment may hold a certain amount of truth as it was the Pro level exam of the 3 taken then that i scored highest on, maybe it was a sign of things to come!
Last job for the day was our Career Factor "Live Interview" on the TechNet Edge stage with Adam Bomb. This was a whole lot of fun and the footage can be seen here.
Then it was the first goodbye, Eddie had to leave us and head back home west to San Diego. I gotta say now, I love that guy, he has a real passion for what he wants to do and has certainly made the most of the opportunity that career factor has given him. My last comment to Eddie sums it up, "If all my staff and candidates had your passion and desire for learning and pride in what they were achieving I would have so fewer problems". I'd like to take the opportunity to reiterate my best wishes to Eddie for the future and i have no doubt in my mind that he will succeed on his chosen path.
My final task for the day was the least taxing, an IT Manager Council dinner. A fantastic evening spent with the people from the Microsoft Learning group at the Woodfire Grill followed by extended discussions over drinks revolving around IT Managers and certification! Loosing track of time would be an understatement as I didn't get back to my hotel until gone 3:30am. Not a problem, up again in 3 hours for Day 3.
You can find out all about Day 3's activities in my next post, until then be sure to check out everyone else's Career Factor updates from Atlanta, I know that Steve and Caroline are having a blast with their "TV show".
Thats all for now, catch you all soon and thanks for all your support.
After spending Sunday bonding with the group, Monday the real work started, Keynote at 9am and past experience told me that breakfast would be busy and the queue to get into the keynote would be on the large side. I was not disappointed on either count and oh my god, how far is it from sessions in B to sessions in C/Meals??? It is a good 15 minutes end to end which by my reckoning makes it the best part of a mile. Session choices may get based on this!!
Keynote: I'm not going to spend a lot of time going through the highlights as it is available to view online, suffice to say that it pretty much met my expectations, it engaged the audience and delivered new content, most surprising was the exodus of what I presume were IT Pros making for the door as the VP of development took to the stage. The demonstration of the new features in vNext really perked my interest and had me looking forwards to the next session.
FDN03 The Future of Microsoft Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management : The keynote provided a sneak preview and this session delivered - a bunch of new features and tweaks in the next version of visual studio that really got me excited, it looks like the team have really be listening to the community feedback and thinking about how they can improve the product in terms of developer productivity. The new feature allowing the suspending and resuming of the complete dev environment is awesome.
BOF01-ITP Fundamentals of IT Leadership: A full and standing BOF session presented by fellow IT Manager Advisory Council member Andrew West, it took a while to warm up, but my hat goes off to Andrew who led the session well and had the audience engaged and communicating with both himself and each other. Some really good tips and best practises were shared in this session.
IT Manager Focus Group: As a member of the ITMAC, i was invited to participate in this focus session run by MS Learning. Unfortunately the NDA prevents me from commenting on the content!
Final job for the day was jumping in a cab to our CareerFactor Dinner, the evening was being filmed and will no doubt appear shortly. Joining the career factor cast around the table was a who's who in the Microsoft learning group and my thanks goes out to everyone for spending their early evening with us and providing engaging conversations and discussions. Good food, good company, good night, what more could we ask for?
Alcohol...?
But's thats a whole other story that i may just leave Wally, Susan and Sasha to tell you about....
That's all for now, be sure to check back regularly this week for all the Teched updates from the group.
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Hello, hello, everyone! We’re all here at the Geeks with Blogs.Net blogging station in the expo room right now…. It’s another GREAT day at Microsoft’s TechEd event in Atlanta. Yesterday, I got the chance to dine with some very fine folks from Microsoft for dinner at the Georgian Terrace Hotel. We got to shoot some cool video over dinner explaining how the last 5 months have been. Man, time flies!
Now at TechEd, for the second day, I’m not as overwhelmed as I was told TechEd could be overwhelming. The event is huge, you can’t deny that, but I am pretty impressed at how organized this chaos is, actually.
I love just bumping in to people that work for so many big corporations. THIS is networking. I plan to get those business cards, contacts, and buddies for the rest of my career here, God willing. I know you can’t just be up in the face of a potential contact or you will surely be disregarded by them. It’s just not polite anyway.
I’m passionate, and avid to finding that start of my career and the skills that I need for it. I’m about to attend a Win7 Cram4Exam session at 1:15 in room B408. Totally excited!
Or so they say. I hope that this is actually the case as I am struggling to find time between sessions, career factor activities and partying to find time to write a regular update!!
Saturday was a good day, seperate bookings for me and Dan gave us an in at flight check-in - result of asking to be sat together was an upgrade to premium economy. More recline and leg room, yes please. That was followed up by the queue jump at the Atlanta Hard Rock Cafe, people were being quoted 45 minute waits for a table, I just smiled mentioned Career Factor and they gave me the next available table! (my all access card had nothing to do with it, honest!)
Being on the early flight from the UK over to Atlanta meant that Dan and I were pretty much out of it before the rest of the career factor cast had made their way to the hotel on Saturday evening, one little drink and we were ready for bed.
I'm not sure who's idea it was to have a 7:30 breakfast meeting, but they have a lot to answer for. Here are the group looking bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready for a busy day .
I have to say, having spent a day with these folks, I am amazed at the fantastic dynamic that we have, everyone gets on so well with one another and the ribbing is endless. If you see Rabeb, ask her about her made up country!
The day pretty much flew by with filming activities taking place at the convention centre, followed by a treat that I had arranged for the group - a trip to see a baseball game at Turner Field, Braves Country.
Moment of the day for me was the moment that Dan (who up to now had not met any of the group) walked up to Eddie outside the stadium, grabbed him and declared "You're Eddie from Career Factor, Oh My God". Total freak out moment.
That's all for now, there will be plenty more updates from the whole of the career factor cast during the week including our live appearance on stage tomorrow afternoon. Until then this is me signing off to attend an IT Manager focus group.