Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Atlanta 2011: General Reception

Day 1: April 10, 2011

After spending time with attendees answering questions at our GPUG DayONE session, UBGP15 Ask the Experts: Microsoft Dynamics GP Development Tools, it was now time to go have some fun and comingle with the crowd attending this year's Convergence.

I had the chance to catch up with my fellow IntellPartners cohorst and exchange impressions from the event. In addition, it was just time to sit down, have a beer, and really enjoy the beautiful evening.

From left to right, MVP Frank Hamelly (EVP, IntellPartners), David Musgrave (Microsoft Corp), Ted Mauldin (CEO, IntellPartners)

The venue couldn't be anymore original. Microsoft chose to host the opening reception at the Georgia Aquarium - the world largest aquarium - and World of Coca Cola museum, two of the most recognizable landmarks in the Atlanta Metro area.

Convergence General Reception

 It was also time to catch up with the newest addition to the Microsoft Dynamics GP blogging community, fellow blogger Yulia Smotrova with MIG & Co. in New York City. 





Fellow blogger, Yulia Smotrova

We decided to head over to the World of Coca Cola museum to get our sugar fix by drinking some 60 different Coca Cola flavors and products bottled and sold around the world, not without stopping for some pictures with the widely recognizable Coca Cola polar bear.

Sheila Jefferson-Russ and MVP Leslie Vail getting pampered by the Coca Cola polar bear

On our way up to the sampling area, David decided to showcase his dancing - as in break dancing - abilities. I have to say, I was pretty impressed (and embarrased at the same time as it made feel old once again!)

Unfortunately, I had to cut the night short as I had a drive to make back home and frankly, was already very tired - please disregard the "feeling old" remark.

The following day would begin with the Convergence Keynote speach featuring Microsoft's CEO Steve Balmer and Corporate VP, Kirill Tatarinov.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Atlanta 2011: GPUG DayONE

DayONE: April 10, 2011

Today marks the GPUG DayONE event at Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Atlanta 2011. I can tell you that the my anxiety levels are climbing, but at the same time I am very happy to be a part of this event.

I drove down to the Georgia World Congress Center and went straight to complete my registration, then walked over to the Omni Hotel to pickup David and return to the GWCC so he could complete his registration - No badges, no access!

The DayONE pre-conference event started out with Kim Peterson opening the General Session. Kim did an awesome job leading the opening and turning it over to Andy Hafer, president of GPUG.

Kim Peterson @ GPUG's Welcoming General Session

Andy outlined the "Andy's 6-pack for success" for Convergence, which focuses on using the event for networking and building relationships in the community, all the while holding yourself and your organization accountable for achieving results.


Town Hall session. From left to right: Andy Hafer, Jeff Trosen, Chris Lerum, Chad Sogge, Pam Misialek, Kim Peterson

After the Welcome General Session, we joined the UBGP21 Where do the Experts Turn for Answers? interactive session, conducted by Zubin Gidwani. Zubin did an excellent job at oulining all the great resources available in the Microsoft Dynamics GP Community as a whole, covering topics like networking, community bloggers, specialized search tools, and so forth. David and I got to chime in a bit and provide some tid bits to attendees.

However our session was back to back with Zubins and we had to leave before his was over. Our DayONE session, UBGP15 Ask the Experts: Microsoft Dynamics GP Development Tools, featured some interesting characters, below a picture of MVP Leslie Vail who is working the Hands-on labs.

MVP Leslie Vail attending our session

After our traditional introduction, we opened up the mics for questions and began working our way through the many interesting questions we got. The questions flowed very naturally as attendees were enticed with Tim Tams - remember the stash David brought from Australia? Below is a picture of the professors.

David and I fielding and asweing the audience's questions

Our session ran well into its allotted time with attendees walking away very satisfied (we hope!). If you attended our session, we highly encourage you to fill out the evaluations. This is the only way we can secure a chance to present again. Next, was the reception at Georgia Acuarium and World of Coca Cola museum. More on this in the next post.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Atlanta 2011: Day -1

Day -1: April 9, 2011

We are just a day away from the official Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Atlanta 2011 registration and reception.

Our day started very early, with David packing his stuff to check into the Omni Hotel, where he will be staying for the duration of the Conference. Once at the hotel, we dropped off his luggage and went to meet with Microsoft MVP and certified trainer, Leslie Vail, who would be helping us as usual with our timing and making sense of our presentation delivery approach. Leslie keeps us real!

We joined Leslie for breakfast at the Embassy Suites hotel where she is staying. Breakfast was all about catching up and prepping ourselves mentally for the grueling day ahead. We were joined by Sheila Jefferson-Russ and the conversation somehow diverted to comparing smartphones - iPhone vs Windows Phone 7 vs Blackberry - their memory management capabilities, and ability to add memory cards without having to destroy the phone to do so.

Breakfast ended and we walked up to the front of the hotel where we said our goodbyes for the day with Sheila and took some pics.

Me and Sheila Jefferson-Russ

We then went to the lounge of the Omni hotel where David and I would go over our Support Debugging Tool presentation flow. Leslie, as usual, helped us and provided some very good ideas around the presentation, which keeps us grounded and with the prize in mind.



David and I working on our presentation

 A little down the road, and after some lunch, came Mr-larger-than-life MVP Mark Polino. Mark was meeting up with the eOne Solutions boys for some ideas exchange.

MVP Mark Polino, David Musgrave, and I

The day went on until the Partner's Reception where we had a chance to meet up with some of the folks that always seem to be around these events. Here are some pictures for your delight.

Me, Dave Eichner, MVP Mark Polino

General view of the Partners Reception room at the Omni Hotel

Well, it's been a long day, so now it's time to go back home and get some rest. Tomorrow, GPUG's DayONE begins and with it comes our first presentation.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Atlanta 2011: Day -3 & -2

Day -3: April 7, 2011

The previous day was clearly very agitated for David and I - him traveling from Australia and me, returning from Florida. We both had a bit of an extended night's rest. Nonetheless, we got up and decided to start the morning relatively slow, by having breakfast at one of the oldest diners in North Fulton County, Alpha Soda, where we begin planning the flow of our presentation delivery: the jokes, the dialog, the main pointers, etc.

Once breakfast was over, David and I went to visit my friend Ron Trochelmann, over at Performing Imports, a nationally recogined leader in BMW high-performance modifications, as well as unmatched service, maintenance, and repairs. Of course, Ron was extremely busy running some software updates on his car.

Ron running some software upgrades on his 2011 BMW 750i

It's interesting to see how software powers the world. A car as sophisticated as a BMW is considered a Computer on Wheels and requires as many service packs as any accounting software in the market to keep it performing at its best. Ron also took his time to greet David, despite being extremely busy applying service packs to his own car, and explained some of the intricacies of David's 2009 BMW 125i and the performance options [not] currently available for it.

After visiting Performing Imports, we went back to my place and began working on the Support Debugging Tool's presentation flow. We have been getting consistent high marks on this presentation, but want to make it more interesting for this Convergence by exploring some of the new features added throughout the past couple of months, now a part of build 15b. The afternoon went by very quick, so it was now time to go do some toy shopping and have some dinner in Old Roswell - the other side of town from where I live.


Canton Street in Roswell (INC is just about where the couple's walking)

This time I picked I.N.C. Street Food for dinner, which serves up Latin flairs with a touch of the South. Between more talks about our presentations and working our way through food, it was nearing a late evening, so it was time for some rest.

Day -2: April 8, 2011

Day started with a healty, home made, breakfast and lots of plans around presentations. By now, most of our content delivery is still being refined. We just need to work on the final touch ups before the real thing begins.

Lunch time was up on us. The choice this time was one of my all time favorites, Alon's Bakery at the Perimeter Mall. Alon's serves up some really good European flairs made with very fresh and natural ingredients.

We drove back home and worked on the final bits of the slides and documents based on the Convergence event reviewer in charge of our slide deck and documents. All documents must be delivered on Sunday at the Spreaker's Room for upload onto the tumbdrive to be delivered to conference attendees. Next, it was important to get some rest. The evening ended with pizza and a movie, Splice.

Tomorrow, we are heading down to the Omni hotel to get David registered, meet up with MVP Leslie Vail, who arrived in town today and continue working on our presentation flow.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Atlanta 2011: Day -4

Day -4: April 6, 2011

Yes folks! It's that time of the year again! Convergence is only 4 days away and everyone is firing on all cylinders, getting last minute preparations done, making sure all speaches are fine-tuned, all presentations good to go... in sum, making sure all T-s are crossed and all I-s are dotted.

And your Dynamic Duo is no different... after spending half of my Spring break in Florida, I was rushed to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International airport (FLL) in the morning to catch a flight back to Atlanta's Hartfield-Jackson International (ATL) to meet with David, who would be arriving from Perth, Australia (via Sydney and Los Angeles) at 3:00 PM EDT. My flight landed 3 hours before his, so I decided to take the train home and drop off my luggage then head back to the airport in my car to pick him up. I got to the airport 2 minutes before David texted me he'd just landed! Perfect timing. I waited for a bit in the baggage claim area as he cleared customs, and there he was.


David arriving at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport's baggage claim area

 As you already know, his flight time from Perth to Atlanta is a mere 29 hours. It showed this time! David was exhausted and look like he could use a bed. Upon retrieving his bag, off we went to my house. The drive was uneventful and we were able to avoid the infamous Atlanta rush hour traffic.

Before getting to my house, I convinced David to stop at Starbucks for a coffee - mind you, he does not drink coffee either. He decided to give the barista a hard time by requesting a plain banana smoothie. That's right, no Banana Vivanno for David! The folks at my local Starbucks are very easy going and decided, after warning David that they have never ever been requested to make a plain banana smoothie, that they would give it a try. Well, the results speak for themselves.

David enjoying his plain banana smoothie

Once we were finished, off we went to my house where we would find ourselves fighting a closet full of bed spreads and pillow cases to get a set that would fit my guestroom bed - folks, to be honest, I never visit that closet! The whole ordeal (fitting the bed) took some 30 minutes, ending with me reorganizing the entire closet of spreads. But then came one of the highlights of the evening: David's stash of smuggled goodies from Australia.

Smuggled goodies: Tim Tam double coat, Tim Tam dark, Tim Tam original, Chicos, Vegemite, Cheesybite, and Tantrix

As you can tell, I get the privilege of picking and choosing from the stash before anyone else! So 1 pack of Tim Tams coated, 1 pack of Tim Tams dark, 2 packs of Chicos, the Vegemite, the Cheesybite, and the Tantrix game are now all off the market for Convergence... mwahahahaha!

It was time for dinner! I went to our local supermarket and grabbed a few good steak cuts, asparagus, fingerling potatoes, and complemented with some corn. Grilling turned out to be very relaxing and food was ready in less than one hour. After cleaning up it was time to sleep. Tomorrow, our prep time begins, so it will be another fun day.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 "Feature of the day" roundup

Last week, Pam and Errol covered a good number of new features to be available in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2. These features range from the security synchronization utility, to unified communications, to a rewrite of the Report Deployment Wizards. How about the new payroll, HR, and inventory SSRS reports. Go check out the new features.

Feature of the Day: ELS Elimination of Modal Forms
Feature of the Day: Microsoft Dynamics Security Synchronization Utility
Feature of the Day: Business Portal Migration Utility
Feature of the Day: Add Unified Communications Functionality in Extender
Feature of the Day: Copy List Items in Extender
Feature of the Day: Rewrite Report Deployment Wizards
Feature of the Day: Additional SRS Reports for Payroll, Human Resources and Inventory

Until next post!

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

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Ask the Experts: Microsoft Dynamics GP Development Tools

Need an informal setting to ask about Microsoft Dynamics GP customization options? Have a customization project you are working on, but have some doubts on where it's going or how to complete a specific part? Need to understand whether you should use Modifier with Visual Basic for Applications, Microsoft Dexterity, or Visual Studio Tools to get the job done? David Musgrave and I will be hosting.

UBGP15 Ask the Experts: Microsoft Dynamics GP Development Tools
Time: 4:45 PM
Room: A402/A403

Now is your chance to ask the tough questions and get some real world answers to the things that have been haunting you: how will customizing GP impact my upgrades? do I need source code to customize? how is Modifier and Visual Basic for Applications different from Visual Studio Tools? Why is it so difficult for my .NET developers to understand Dynamics GP programming?

Visit GPUG for more information on registering for DayOne.

Until next post!

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

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