It's Microsoft Partner Roadshow time again, when all of us little Microsoft people lose a day's productive work to sit in a hotel seminar room and bask in the warm glow of the mothership. Now the last few of these MS has copped a hiding for offering sales/marketing blurbs, and not much more. Now given that all of the attendees are MS partners, you can probably safely assume we're up to speed with that stuff, and wanting something meatier. Ie: something more technical. Thus, in exchange for paying real money to attend this time, we were promised what are called Hands-On Labs. Ie: Here's the software. Load it on your laptop, click the buttons, play. So you can imagine how unimpressed everyone was when the very first session was a 3 hour powerpoint slide deck. Groan. The presenter certainly knew his stuff, but that's not the point.
Speak to your audience, Microsoft! Especially when you've asked them to pay for the priviledge, and promised them something they really want. We are technically minded IT business people. We do not want marketing babble. We are not impressed with the glossy stuff. We're here to learn and improve our knowledge, not get sweaty over MS evangelism.