As much fun as it was, it's very good to be home. My kids were both happy to see me, and the wife didn't complain too much. Now that I've had some time to reflect on what I learned at Tech·Ed, I need to get my conclusions down before I lose track of them all.
Certification: A lot of people don't put a lot of weight in certifications, citing examples of "paper" MCSD's (I've known a few myself). That said, I'm really proud I got my MCSD at Tech·Ed this year. I've wanted my MCSD since I was 13 years old, but I never made it a priority. I had time and opportunity at Tech·Ed this year, so I took advantage of it. My goal for next year is to complete the two upgrade exams to get my MCPD in Enterprise Applications.
Technology: Admittedly, I saw fewer sessions than I wanted to. I had a hard time adjusting to east coast time (being a late riser on central time to begin with), and I ended up oversleeping every morning. That said, I saw a few technologies that got me really excited. Among these are Acropolis, WCF, WF, LINQ, and a few others that don't immediately spring to mind. Due to a relatively busy workload at Commerce, I'm a little behind the times on getting to play with these things (particularly WCF, WF, and LINQ, which I already knew about, but hadn't actually seen in practice), but that also highlights some need for me to do some deep thought on my career direction. More on that later.
Community Involvement: On an earlier post, I mentioned that I got to meet a bunch of my personal heroes. I have a very deep desire to emulate these people and make the level of community contribution that they have. I want to have something valuable to say, and I want to be able to present it so that people to want to hear it. It occurs to me, looking at other people who have done it, I need to be more active in the community. I have a blog with maybe 10 regular readers, which is all well and good, but I'm not providing anything valuable enough to merit any serious attention. I need to start spending some time in newsgroups, forums, and the local .NET users group, getting down in the thick of the community and participating like I know I'm capable of.
Career Direction: The more I think about it, the more I think I've been standing still for too long. I'm very proud of what we've done at Commerce, and it's a good company I'm happy to be a part of, but the reality is that it's primarily a J2EE shop, and I'm living (happily) in a .NET world. When you consider that online banking is a rather narrow customer-facing interface to our broader J2EE enterprise, I really begin to wonder if I shouldn't be thinking in larger terms. Whether those larger opportunities are within or outside of Commerce is a question that I'll have to put some thought into. I know there are shops out there who are into the bleeding edge .NET stuff that would be awesome, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention I went to two Birds of a Feather sessions at Tech·Ed that really got me thinking; One was "Thriving and Surviving as an Independent Consultant," and the other was "Starting and Running your own Software Business." The thought I keep coming back to: If all these people could do it, why couldn't I? Wow, I've got a lot to sort out in this category.
Friends: I made a lot of new contacts I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with. I certainly hope a few of them are reading this and will also keep the lines of communication open.
Fun: I went to a session on programming games in XNA. I totally need to do that. And hopefully sell the games I write. :)