In less than a month, the 2014 edition of the Microsoft Exchange Conference will kick off in Austin, Texas. For those who haven’t decided if they will be going yet, here’s some reasons why you should.

The Value of Conferences

Being someone who frequently attends conferences, I *think* I’m in a position I can say that conferences provide great value. Typically, you can get up-to-date with the latest (and greatest) technology in IT.

Often, the cost for attending a conference are estimated higher than a traditional 5-day course. However, I find this not to be true – at least not all the time. It is true that – depending on where you fly in from – Travel & Expenses might add up to the cost. However, I think it is a good thing to be ‘away’ from your daily work environment. That typically leaves one less tempted to be pre-occupied with work rather than soaking in the knowledge shared throughout the conference. The experience is quite different from a training course. Conferences might not provide you the exact same information as in a training, but you’ll definitely be able to learn more (different) things. Especially if your skills in a particular product are already well-developed, conferences are the place to widen your knowledge.

On top of that, classroom trainings don’t offer you the same networking capabilities. In case of MEC, for instance, there will be a bunch of Exchange MVPs and Masters who you can talk to. All of them very knowledgeable and I’m sure they won’t mind a good discussion on Exchange! This could be your opportunity to ask some really difficult questions or just hear what their opinion is on a specific issue. Sometimes the insights of a 3rd person can make a difference…!

It is also the place where all the industry experts will meet. Like I mentioned earlier, there will be Masters and MVPs, but also a lot of people from within Microsoft’s Exchange Product Group will be there. What better people are there to ask your questions to?

Great Content

Without any doubt, the Exchange Conference will be the place in 2014 to learn about what’s happening with Exchange. Service Pack 1 – or Cumulative Update 4, if you will – has just been released and as you might’ve read there are many new things to discover.

At the same time, it’s been almost 1.5 years since Exchange 2013 has been released and there are quite some sessions that focus on deployment and migration. If you’re looking to migrate shortly, or if you’re a consultant migrating other companies, I’m sure you’ll get a lot of value from these sessions as they will be able to provide you with first-hand information. When MEC 2012 was held – shortly before the launch of Exchange 2013 – this wasn’t really possible as there weren’t many deployments out there.

Sure, one might argue that the install base for Exchange 2013 is still low. However, if you look back at it, deployments for Exchange 2010 only really kicked of once it was past the SP1 era. And I expect nothing else to happen for Exchange 2013.

As a reference: here’s a list of sessions I definitely look forward to:

And of course the “Experts unplugged” sessions:

I realize that’s way too many sessions already and I will probably have to make a choice which ones I will be able to attend…
But the fact that I have so many only proves that there’s so much valuable information at MEC…

Great speakers

I’ve had a look through who is speaking at MEC and I can only conclude that there is a TON of great speakers. All of which I am sure they will make it worth the wile. While Microsoft-speakers will most likely give you an overview of how things are supposed to work, many of the MVPs have sessions scheduled which might give you a slight less biased view of things. The combination of both makes for a good mix to get you started on the new stuff and broaden your knowledge of what was already there.

Location

Austin, Texas. I haven’t been there myself. But based on what Exchange Master Andrew Higginbotham blogged a few days ago; it looks promising!

Microsoft has big shoes to fill. MEC 2012 was a huge success and people are expecting the same – if not better – things from MEC 2014. Additionally, for those who were lucky enough to attend the Lync Conference in Vegas earlier this month, that is quite something MEC has to compete with. Knowing the community and the people behind MEC, I’m pretty confident this edition will be EPIC.

See you there!

Michael