Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Houston 2012 - Day 3

Convergence is now in it's last day and the morning opens up with a great treat: some good ol' Texas 2 Step dance and gaming activities for individuals in attendance. It's always good to note that The spOt's party was the night before, so garnishing full attendance to the Closing Session is always been a challenge, but here we were, scrambling for a couple seats.

Texas 2-Step

Place is packed for the closing session!

Doug Kennedy, Vice President, Microsoft Dynamics Partners, opened the final keynote presentation with a summary of our previous days' events (including a recap of conference attendees' volunteer efforts to give back to the local community), followed by an energetic performance by Dance Houston.

Dance Houston

Then the moment everyone was waiting for: an advance welcome to next year's event in New Orleans, Louisiana, host city for Convergence 2013 - If you want to start tweeting about the event, use hash tag #CONV13.

Microsoft Convergence New Orleans 2013

General Colin Powell, (Ret.), shared his insights on how to remain focused, take responsibility and work towards improving processes, organizations and people. With the learning of what it takes to be a great leader, our time with General Powell was, for most, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and for all, unforgettable.

Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.)

It's interesting to note that Gen. Powell is a car fan and drives a Chevy Corvette in which he picks up a ticket or two from the local police departments. Mr. Powell concluded his remarks by taking questions from the attendees, not before popping a delicious Diet Coke open to refresh himself.

Doug Kennedy and Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.)

David and I rushed out of the Closing Session to go do our own "closing sessions". It was time for our repeats, CSGP19-R2 Administering Microsoft Dynamics GP Like a Pro with The Support Debugging Tool which ran from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM. To our surprise, this session had a good number of attendees (36) despite the time slot it had been assigned - running contiguous to the Closing Session. Granted we were in a smaller room too.

Off we went to lunch and it was just about time again to pack in an extra session, before having to host our own, CSGP23-R2 Advanced Microsoft Dynamics GP Administration with the Support Debugging Tool. We couldn't have predicted still having 57 attendees in this session, given the fact that by midday, most people had already left for the airport to catch their flights. However, we still managed to carry on with the show.

After our session, we attended John Lowther and MVP Leslie Vail's repeat CSGP20-R2 The New Microsoft Dynamics GP Administrator to support and provide these first time presenters with our feedback on their session. I have to say, it was great to see John and Leslie picking up on some cues we provided from their initial presentation.

It was time to say goodbye to Ace Martin over at the speakers room. Believe it or not, she is the true Closer - no offense to Gianmarco Salzano and team over at Reporting Central. Ace was graceful to take a picture holding up her gigantic speaker schedule board which she crafted in Microsoft Excel.

Ace Martin and her Excel Speaking Schedule

The remaining few of us took a picture with Ace before saying our goodbyes to her.

From left to right: Ace Martin, Ted Mauldin, David Musgrave, John Lowther, Leslie Vail, Beat Bucher, Sheila Jefferson-Ross and Mariano Gomez

The Conference had now come to and end and it was time to leave.

Back at the hotel, we gather a few people for dinner and off we went to Mia Bella Trattoria over at the Houston Pavilions. Dinner went on with normalcy, until it was time for Tim Tam Slams. You can see footage on Facebook here assuming you have an account and are friends with the poster.

Well, it was time to go pack the bags for my trip back home.

See you in New Orleans next year!

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/