Project conference – arrival

I arrived at the project conference at Anaheim and had a great start at the booths.
But first let me just say the flight was a real pain, 14 hours travelling is just too much. Luckily we met up with Ian White at Starbucks. So the trip wasn’t a complete los. And I’ve seen 3 movies which is also great.

In the goody bag I got the What’s new Microsoft Project 2013 written by Dale Howard and Gary Chefetz (also known for their Implementing book). That was an awesome and pleasant surprise! I already read it, but now I can add it to my own bookcase too, and this is one of those books that you can surely read 2 times or more.

At the hall I ran into Bonnie Biafore, writer of “the missing manual”, one of the few books on Project 2013 and other great books. We talked about the LinkedIn discussions we followed and will chat some more at her book signing. After that nice chat, I hooked up with colleagues Hester and Maurice and said hello to another great blogger; Tom Henry at the EPMA booth, had a really spicy beer (if you are reading this, sorry Tom, not my taste I’m just sticking with the Dutch beers). I’m excited to sit at the session on Wave Planning, more on that later this week. I also ran into PJ Mistry who promised a nice demo on his SharePoint solutions in combination with Project Server later on this week. Finally I had a nice chat with Eric Uyttewaal, who you might remember from my book review. He showed me some excellent additions to the project stand-alone application, and even gave me the opportunity to try them out myself with a time limited trail version of the tools. Once I do get the chance to test them I’ll be sure to share my thoughts with you.

Tomorrow will be a great day with a lot of interesting sessions, goal for tomorrow: a picture with Jan Kalis together with my team. Jan if you are reading this, let me know, I would be thrilled. Now off to bed, the fireworks at Disneyworld just stopped so I’ll be out like a candle. Keep an eye out for the next post.