After 6 years of attending the HP Tech Forum (Orlando, Houston, Las Vegas) there are two things that never get tired, seeing friends and members of Connect and getting an intimate view of what HP is up to. Our members were out in force. Our theme this year was You-niversity and our mission was to educate and celebrate our members at our Monday full-day YouConns, Club Connect VIP status, our Tail Gate area on the Expo floor and our Tweet Up and Pep Rally on Tuesday night at the House of Blues (over 400 attendees!) complete with drummers, cheerleaders and even a mascot affectionately known as ‘Billwinkle’. The Tweet Up was filled to capacity and attendees donned their buttons with their Twitter handles (@ninabuik) so everyone could identify the face behind the avatar! Thank you to our sponsors, Emulex, Arrow and HP for their generous support of our Pep Rally. You can view a video shot by @HPStorageGuy at http://youtu.be/AIhoJnf5qi4

This year’s event had a different feel to it…higher octane. There were about 1500 more attendees this year over last, and HP executives were out in force to share the news about all the new product announcements. I attended the embargoed press conference on Monday led by HP’s David Donatelli. He provided an overview of Converged Infrastructure (a hardware-free philosophy  - I couldn’t help myself, the Lion King was playing at the Mandalay Bay), new server announcements, networking and the 3Com acquisition but what caught my attention most was the innovation in the HP Storage space and to my pleasant surprise, it was developed in-house at HP Labs! The StoreOnce data deduplication software answers a huge demand in the social media space by serving as a single architecture for data deduplication across an organization…this will without a doubt be the most efficient means to reduce IT sprawl, improve performance at an affordable price. Since I have a passion for all things social media, you can understand my interest in this technology.

DreamWorks’s CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, provided the opening keynote. He talked about their use of HP technologies to help them produce world class computer generated animation. I found out later that DreamWorks is really a small company (around 2K employees!) that produces images and films that are larger than life, including an affable Scottish ogre named Shrek. I did meet Shrek and yes, he was indeed larger than any life form in the building.

The final general session was supposed to feature a keynote by Ann Livermore who, due to illness, was unable to attend. We wish her well! Tom Hogan provided closing remarks and did a good job of filling in for Ann. Tom did announce that there would be a 2011 Las Vegas event in June that would combine the HP Tech Forum and HP Software Universe (YEAH!) but did not indicate where it would be and what the new combined event would be called. Stay tuned. The closing party was amazing and while I am not one to get star struck, being less than 10 feet from the seeing the legendary Roger Daltrey perform gave me chills. After his 2010 Super Bowl performance, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Suffice it to say, he was amazing and left us all with a smile that only the best youthful memories can bring. I was back in high school again. The Goo Goo Dolls followed and played a combination of their hits and new material. While I thoroughly enjoyed them, following Roger Daltrey was tough.

Another unique feature this year was THE Expo. In years past, vendors lined the aisles with their booths and goods much like the midway of a town fair. This year, there was a common look and feel…sexy (yes I said it) and sleek and very inviting. That said, I did find myself lost in the maze a couple of times. My participation this year was somewhat different than in years past. I was not the president this year which relieved me of many board duties for which the president is typically responsible. I served as Connect’s Tech Forum Conference Chair and loved every minute of working with the best staff and core team ever. The vision we created months ago was executed professionally and with our members in mind every step of the way. There were tears (I admit that I’m the emotional type) of gratitude, exhaustion and pain (a lot of sore feet!). One of my greatest joys at conference is presenting the HP Recognition Award and the Connect Volunteer of the Year Award. This year, we had so many nominees in each category, it was quite a challenge to pick the Uber Best from the Best. In the end the awards were deservedly given to HP’s Dlaine Mattox (We HEART Dlaine!), who works with our Chapters, SIGs and was the glue and conscience of our Tech Forum Core Team. Oliver Bach of Germany received the Volunteer of the Year award for his tireless support of the Connect Germany chapter and his willingness to jump in and help our international organization in any way he can. He is a student and a delightful young man and I LOVED seeing the surprise on his face when his name was called. Congratulations to both Dlaine and Oliver. We are a better organization because of you.

Connect held one of its quarterly board meetings prior to HP Tech Forum in Vegas. We spent two days working very hard to improve on our value and make Connect and myCommunity the most engaged IT user community in the world. During the final hour, our executive sponsor, Bo McBee, joined us for an HP update and a surprise! You may recall that my parting gift and legacy to Connect was a check to launch a scholarship program. In March we announced the Connect Future Leadership in Technology Scholarship Fund and since then, the donations have been coming in! Bo surprised Chris Koppe and I with a check from HP for $2,500.00 US. Thank you Bo and HP for your support of such a worthy community cause. I cannot wait to present the scholarship recipients from around the world in June 2011.

I was able to share the results of our recent member survey with members of the press and various executives at HP and received lots of support to help better educate our members on what Converged Infrastructure means to the HP business technology practitioner. You will hear lots more coming from Connect in the weeks and months ahead around CI and how we can help our members be more successful in their adoption of it.

For all of you who were there, it was GREAT seeing you again; and for those who were not, I hope you’ll join us next year.

Nina Buik