I was at the PASS Summit

Alright, the title of this post is a big fat lie. I would have given my left join to experience the PASS Summit firsthand in Seattle, but it wasn't meant to be this year. Luckily thanks to the magic of teh internetz, I was able to feel like I was there. I'd like to thank two groups of people for making this possible:

First of all, a big thank you to everyone at PASS that was responsible for streaming the keynotes and women in tech lunch for everyone to see. I know it took a lot of people to make this happen: whoever decided streaming it was a good idea, those who set up the streaming from the IT side, the people who filmed it, etc.

Second, an equal amount of thanks to all of you who were actually at the summit and were tweeting and blogging your experiences. It's through your actions that folks like me who are stuck at our desks this week can live vicariously through the constant stream of information flowing from the conference.

Being able to watch the keynotes live and tweet back-and-forth with those in attendance and others at home made the experience very real to me. In some ways it might almost be better than actually attending, as I can be multiple places at once with Twitter and I wouldn't have to figure out where to go or what I'd have to miss in order to be somewhere else. That being said, there are so many wonderful people at the Summit I'd love to meet in person that no amount of tweeting or other online correspondence could ever make up for actually being there.

As for next year, I promise to do my best to join you all in the flesh, as opposed to just in spirit and tweets. I may have to hitchhike to Seattle, sleep on a park bench, and sneak in back doors to do it, but if there's a will there's a way!