The one conference people involved with Exchange and related technologies are looking forward to is now only one week away, the Microsoft Exchange Conference. In fact, this will be the first MEC(*) I will be attending and I am really looking forward to it. Apart from attending sessions and joining discussions that I am sure will be interesting, conferences like these means catching up with peers, some I have not had the pleasure of meeting them in person yet.

With over 100 sessions crammed in a 3 day conference, you can imagine picking sessions is not an easy task, depending on your experience and knowledge you wish to attain. For those still in doubt on which sessions to attend to, Exchange fellow Tony Redmond wrote a helpful list of recommendations here and followed up today with an overview of the MVP sessions here. As you may or may not know, MVPs are recognized people from the community offering independent real-world experience and insights.

Apart from all the learning opportunities, there will also be festivities and parties. I’d like to bring to your attention one of these parties, the ENow sponsored UC Architects party at the rooftop of the Speakeasy on April 1st (no joke). You can request a pass at  http://schedulemymaintenance.com but be quick because the number of passes is limited. To increase your chances, should drawing be required, make sure you listen to The UC Architects episode 35 for a special promo code.

Like with conferences I have attended before, I will be tweeting noteworthy information from the event. If you want to receive MEC-wide information, I suggest you monitor the official hashtag, #IAmMEC.

*) Pronounced by many as  [mek] but according to this Geek Out with Perry – MEC Edition video, Microsoft pronounces it as [em-ee-see]. However, this is insignificant compared to the discussion on how to pronounce Azure.