As I sit here, waiting for my first session of EMC World, and debate what that might be, I wanted to share some thoughts. Before I do that, some advice: Never take a 6am flight from the East Coast to the West Coast unless you are planning on being well rested before you start. That translates into 3am in the West before you take any activities around getting to the flight on time.

• The opening reception was a little disappointing. It was organized around the concept of communities, letting people know what was going on and allowing people to connect. Great concept, just now perfectly executed. While the snacks and drinks were fine, unless you don’t like pretzels and popcorn, there were no chairs and everything was a little tightly packed. I would have liked to see about twice the space with chairs for people to sit in and socialize. After a couple hours, my feet were hurting.
• I must say that the opening night party is better under EMC than when Documentum did this on their own. The difference is obviously more registration fees and a larger company, but I do like concept of having a band opening.

Play the Cloud

The Developer Network has started a game, Play the Cloud, for people to build a little social network. You start by defining who you are in terms of tags and then linking to people. There are a few prizes. It will be interesting to see how it develops. If people just go after quantity and not quality, then it is just a game. If people take time to try and meet the people that their tag clouds link them to, then there may be some lasting benefit.

If you are at EMC World, signup and play. My free-form tags are:

1. Favorite non-EMC Tech: Electricity
2. Favorite School: Auburn
3. Favorite Activity: Baseball
4. Favorite Food: Beer