Ilja Coolen \ ICSS

Yep, it is now 23:00 (11pm for those who have trouble deciphering 23:00 ) and I am sitting in my hotel room. Quickly jotting down some words to keep a record of my TechFieldDay Seattle 2010 adventure, start to finish.

Started my journey at 19:53 saying goodbye to my loved ones. Spend a couple of hours in the train, twittering and reading and working my way to a backlog of personal documents. The train didn’t  go at its regular speed, due to planned maintenance work on the railroad tracks and some new tracks being laid out, so my trip didn’t start of a full speed. The flight will probably make up by going supersonic (zzzZZzzzzzZZZzz, oh darn, I am already dreaming, must be tired)…

I checked in to the citizenM (@citizenM) hotel and was kinda surprised by the funkiness of the rooms. Coming through the door, you’ll immediately notice the two large circles in the floor. One is the shower floor, and the other is the toilet area. So no separate bathroom here (budget part of the citizenM mantra). It looks like I have two Star Trek transporter pads in my room. I can transport from shower to toilet, and back.

In the far end of the room there is a huge bed. It’s not made, but the pillows and covers are “somewhat” folded on the bed. What more do you want for a short stay, during which all you want is get some sleep.

Another eye catcher is the Philips Pronto TSU9300 remote control sitting on the nightstand.
This would probably be the luxury part of the citizenM mantra.

It’s programmed to control the alarmclock, lights (adjust room lighting colors to match your mood), music, TV set and the room temperature setting.

All this, just to be able to catch your plane in time tomorrow morning. See, the fun starts now

I think I’ll go and see how funky the bar is.

Hi all,

Just got another email about the delegates and schedule for Tech Field Day Seattle 2010. The list of delegates looks at least as impressive as the ones present at previous Tech Field Day events. I must say, I feel honored to be among such great names, even without the list being 100% complete.

Check out the #TFD site to view the confirmed delegates. Two other great names are 99% certain to attend, but some paperwork needs to be sorted out.

Judging on the mail, Thursday will have a great surprise in store for us all. Don’t be a fool and miss out on this, so make sure you are tuned in for twitter, live blogging or live video streams. I am also looking forward to the Friday presentations, because I would really like to see what one of the presenting companies is up to these days. They aren’t that well known for their IT business over here in Europe.

In the mean time, I am trying out some services and tools to enable a live video stream like @Kiwi_Si did on the previous #TFD event in Boston. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Disclosure:

I am invited to this event, and all is paid for. Travel expenses, meals and such are all sponsored. As consideration I will be venting my (candid and independent) opinion on what is presented through blogging and probably Twitter.

Just like Derek Schauland I recently got the final invitation to Tech Field Day, Seattle 2010 edition.
I am looking forward to being a delegate since it’s first start, back in November 2009. Back then I had arranged for Stephen Foskett to present a session at the annual Dutch Storage Expo, but unfortunately he could not make it because of delayed flights. (note: I am so hoping this doesn’t happen to me while flying to Seattle).

Being a professional like he is, we somehow managed to still get him to present, through Skype. It didn’t work out the way we intended it to, but nonetheless it was a great session. We still got some very good reviews afterwards. Stephen afterwards told me about the TFD events and I really wanted to join. Due to the short notice, I wasn’t able to make it.  But yay, here’s a new chance to join the impressive list of TFD delegates.

I am not a blogger like most on the list, but I do have my own opinion on things and as an independent storage consultant I do want to know all I can on whatever storage related news is out there. I never have had an urge to express my opinions, but in the more recent years this has changed. I haven’t found much I thought was worth mentioning however, considering everything was already talked about on the internet. My perspective on this is changing.

Tech Field Day is a great opportunity to meet peers and get some insight in products from well known vendors and the not-so-well-known (to me) vendors. I will also use this event to crank up my blogging a nudge, willingly.

Like Derek said, it has the appearance of a conference. But the invitation and free-of-charge part is not something that defines a conference. I consider it an intimate/private tech update, with the intention to create buzz and some great exposure in the online community. Considering the previous TFD’s popularity, creating exposure should not be a problem.

For the international delegates, this will be a couple of tough days. Long flights, long days, intense discussions and presentations, and of course a party or two will not make these couple of days a walk in the park. But then again, its not intended to be.

I am looking forward to meeting all other delegates in real life. Check out this Twitter list.

Disclosure:

I am invited to this event, and all is paid for. Travel expenses, meals and such are all sponsored. As consideration I will be venting my (candid and independent) opinion on what is presented through blogging and probably Twitter.