Events Calendar 2016-2017

calendar Jan 4, 2017 · 3 min read · vmworld vmug microsoft  ·
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It’s that time of year again, when we change the calendar on the wall, look back at what happened in the previous 12 months, and look forward to what might be coming in the next 12. Here’s some of the in-person events I enjoyed in the last year and some rough plans for 2017.

The right sort of in-person events are a great opportunity to get out of the office, learn about new and existing technologies, and meet your peers. I find such events invaluable in my day job to avert the risk of living in a tech-bubble, doing things how they’ve always been done, and only using the kit that my preferred supplier’s sales department recommends.

2016

Aside from my playing far too much Minecraft, I went to lots of exciting places in 2016, for example……

  • VMworld Europe 2016 I was here as an official Blogger seeing (amongst other things) the release of vSphere 6.5. I also managed to squeeze in my first vBrownbag presentation - I think adding “International Conference Speaker” to my CV might be a little excessive, but it was a great opportunity.

  • VMUG This was the first year that I made it to the full set of London VMUG meetings, culminating in the annual UK UserCon in Birmingham in November. At the UserCon I chaired a roundtable discussion about IT in Higher Education.

  • Insight Technology Show I’ve been to this annual springtime event in London for many years now as it’s a great opportunity to see lots of different vendors in one day all under one roof. This years’ was a bit of a more subdued affair (I’m guessing because of the economic climate), but a useful day out none the less.

  • Microsoft tech day in February titled- “What’s new in Windows Server 2016: Building a more flexible infrastructure”. A great Hands-on event

  • Microsoft Future Decoded returned to the Excel centre in November, I attended the Technical Day. Future Decoded has an interesting mix of content- in a breakout session you can watch SCCM and SQL Server being deployed with PowerShell, and then walk into the Keynote and hear about how scientists are able to detect sound from silent video footage (Watch this TED presentation)

2017

The following year has some good events already in the calendar, more of the same and maybe even something new. I’m hoping to make as many as possible:

  • VMworld 2017 -The European leg has been moved from it’s usual slot in October to 11-14 September and is again in Barcelona.

  • London VMUG - Dates are 19th January, 6th April, 22nd June and I expect a UK VMUG Usercon to follow in November.

  • I’m also trying to put together a local vBeers event – out in the “Countryside” rather than in London. Details to follow, event will hopefully be in February.

  • Microsoft pulled their big European tech conference back in 2014 and there doesn’t look like any hopes of a resurrection (especially as even more conferences are being folded into Ignite), but there’s usually some good content at the smaller scale local events.

And who knows what else the year will bring?