SharePoint Saturday Houston was May 1. I’ve been pulling my thoughts together for a couple of weeks now. I want to evaluate each aspect of the event in highlight. I am not going to discuss each bullet point on a blog. If you have questions or varying opinions, I’d sure love to hear them in the comments.
Let’s begin with facilities. The Norris Center is an awesome facility for a conference this size.
- It has 5 rooms for tracks, each holding 50 to 100 people
- It has an enormous lunch room
- It is well run
- They had great food and plenty of it: snacks, excellent lunch, and refreshments in every room all day
The quality of speakers was remarkable.
- I’m not going to name any names.
- We had a good balance of local representatives and people from around the region, and a few from each coast
- We had great topics with people who are considered some of the experts in their fields
- We had general, case study, architecture, administration, and developer’s covered
The schedule. 
- Here’s where I fess up. I was part of the committee who decided to have tracks go until 6pm. That was a mistake.
- We would have been better off with one less time slot and a little longer presentation sessions.
- Nonetheless, the session content was great, we had plenty of time to sit down and eat, and we still had time to give away the swag!
Supporters (Vendors)
- The vendors were awesome. They contributed the funds to make this happen. And from what I heard, they felt it was a good investment.
- They did a great job of engaging with the guests
- They did not make you feel obligated to talk to them (SPC, PDC, etc, the vendors were a bit more grabby)
- I feel like they respected people and valued their time.
Volunteers
- Volutneers were great.
- I think we needed just a couple more “runners” if you will.
- They were helpful and very accomodating.
Overall, this was a great event. I am glad that I was able to be a part of it!
See you at Houston TechFest on October 9, 2010!
