One of the ways to make the most of a conference (and to help justify the spend) is to go through the schedule and think about what sessions you want to attend. It’s never easy, there are always lots of good choices and it’s hard to settle on just one per time slot. I try to always pick a topic or two that is outside my general interest area just to keep up on what’s going in the rest of the world.

I always pick two per hour, you never know when a session will be filled to capacity or you’ll decide that it’s not quite what you expected. To keep the schedule simple though, I’ve just selected my “A” choices. It’s not simple for to me pick either. For example, at 8:30 am on Thursday I know Aaron will do a great job on PowerShell, and I’d love to hear what my friend Mike Walsh has to say on disasters, but I think I can get the most from the presentation on the Parallel Data Warehouse by Brian Mitchell.

Go print the schedule and start circling, it’s time well spent.