Karol Kaczmarek » WPC10

WPC 2010: Highlights

karol — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 11:11:51 +0000

I chose best photos (it is my personal opinion though ;P) from WPC 2010 and combined it into less than 4 minutes long video (to be honest it is nothing more than a slideshow with music background ) showing most important places and events. I guess it is much easier to click play once and relish all these beautiful pictures than go through all photos separately

WPC 2010 – Highlights from Karol Kaczmarek on Vimeo.

Additional – hidden – reason for this video is just creating memento for myself.
Maybe, I am a little bit sentimental, but there are days when I really like to come back to some past events and remind of all these great people, places and funny situations The only thing which restrains me from doing it is awareness that usually there are hundreds (if not thousands) of photos waiting for me.
Watching such clip takes only few minutes, but allows to bring back amazing memoirs.

This is first highlight video I have ever created, but I feel it will be pretty useful soon, so it won’t be the last one Moreover, I really recommend everyone to do the same with your photos from vacations/parties/meetings/conferences or whatever you wouldn’t like to forget about (exams? ).

Worldwide Partners Conference 2010: afterthoughts

karol — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:46:38 +0000

WPC 2010 has already ended. It was a really great time which I could spend not only meeting and networking with Microsoft Partners, but also working with other members of WPC Student Team. These students came from 13 countries located on 5 continents and it makes me very happy and optimistic seeing how easily we could communicate and collaborate in spite of all cultural differences which surely existed between us.

Microsoft Worldwide Partners Conference is place where we had a chance to network, improve our skills and knowledge and also have fun trying out state-of-the-art electronical devices.

During keynotes, in front of 13 000 people in Verizon Center performed the most famous people from the industry (e.g. Steve Ballmer and outside of it (Bill Clinton). We also had our “5 minutes” showing up on a stage for a while

Apart from keynotes, there were also smaller sessions related to main conference tracks which I was writing about earlier. On the last day I decided to participate in one of them, about “Getting Things Done”, as I am a big fan of this philosophy and use it for managing my everyday work.

When I came into session room I couldn’t believe that on the stage was David Allen – Father and biggest guru of GTD – It was really awesome. It goes without saying that I couldn’t refrain from taking a photo with him I guess I should smile more though

Apart from keynotes and sessions (and hands-on-lab which I even didn’t have time to participate in), Kimberly Voltero set up for us a bunch of meetings with highly ranked people from Microsoft which once again gave us opportunity to network and discuss about imagine cup, certifications and other our and their concerns.

All these things I am writing about sound probably quite serious and they in some part are, but I am convinced everyone here had really nice time going out every evening to some parties (although I would rather call them very pleasant meetings ), sightseeing and having fun together.

All in all last few days I spent in Washington, D.C. were really amazing and I hope I will have a chance to meet at least part of those guys I met here next year at WPC 2011 in Los Angeles

Today I will head down to the south of US, to Florida to hang out and do some sightseeing during next two weeks. It will be my first time traveling alone in foreign country. There is a lot of concerns about it, a lot of advantages and disadvantages. It’s always nice to visit new places with friends, but traveling alone gives you a lot of new possibilities. You can do whatever you want, go wherever you want and it is definitely easier and more often to socialize with locals – I simply always wanted to see how is it to be a “lonely” traveler
Now I will have a chance

I attach some nice pics from the conference, hope it reflects the atmosphere here and you will enjoy it!

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Can’t attend in WPC 2010? You can still watch keynotes!

karol — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:15:51 +0000

If you weren’t able to come and attend in WPC 2010, you still have a chance to watch all Keynotes which will be presented here!
Live video is available on the official WPC site.

Keynotes begin at 8:00 AM EDT on July 12 and 13 and one hour later on July 14.

Schedule for today:
Vision Keynote – Verizon Center – 8:00 am – 12:00 pm

Allison L. Watson
Jon Roskill
Steven A. Ballmer
Bob Muglia
Tami Reller
Stephen Elop

Solution Value Keynotes – 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Andy Lees
Chris Capossela
Rich Reynolds
Kirill Tatarinov
Robert Wahbe

Full schedule is available here.
Don’t miss this chance!

Great WPC Keynotes!

karol — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:29:41 +0000

WPC is famous for it’s outstanding Keynote speakers.

During Keynotes most important executives share their passion, vision and strategies for business direction, customer campaigns, upcoming launches, and more.

You can hardly ever find so many eminent people from the industry in one place, but WPC keynote sessions offer you the possibility not only to meet them personally, but listen what they want to share with WPC attendees.

This year to Washington arrive Steve Balmer, Walid Abu-Hadba, Allison L. Watson and nearly 30 other amazing people.

But as it is not only about technology, as a special guest speakers we will have an opportunity of listening to Bill Clinton, Founder of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the 42nd President of the United States in his presentation titled “Embracing our Common Humanity”.

Microsoft Worldwide Partners Conference 2010

karol — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 19:52:31 +0000

As I said in my previous post (yes, the polish one ), I will put some effort into informing you about WPC 2010. The reason is pretty straightforward – Microsoft Students to Business program decided to invite about 10 students from all over the world to participate in this conference – luckily, I was also selected and as an result will have a great chance to write some posts about this amazing event

First of all, I would like to introduce you to WPC and say what exactly it is.

If you investigate the title you should discover 3 things:

1) WPC is a conference
2) WPC is about partners, networking and collaboration
3) WPC is organized by Microsoft

And of course you would be right!

This annual gathering is Microsoft’s initiative made in order to let their Partners network and build connections, share best practices, experience the latest product innovations and learn new skills and techniques.

This year it takes place in Washington, D.C. and will gather thousands of people including large number of CEOs. Apart from networking opportunities they will participate in over 220 learning sessions and 90 Hands-On Labs in such tracks like:

Application Platform
Business Productivity 2010
Cloud Services
Core Infrastructure
Microsoft Dynamics
Reseller
Windows Phone
Windows: Accelerating Revenue Opportunities for Partner
Development
Distributor
Hosting Infrastructure
Independent Software Vendor (ISV)
Large Account Resellers
Learning Solutions
Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)
System Integrator & Solution Partner
Software Asset Management (SAM)
Telco and Managed Services
Communications Sector
Enterprise & Industry Partner
Public Sector
Small- and Midsize-Business Partner
Business Leadership
Marketing
Sales
US Partner Track: Infinite Possibilities

Detailed descriptions of each of above mentioned tracks you can find here.