TEC Blog Posts & Testimonials
“I’m in the airport, exhausted after another fun-filled Experts conference. TEC (The Experts Conference), formerly known as DEC (The Directory Experts Conference) is put on by Quest, focusing on Microsoft & Microsoft partner technologies for directory, email (new this year), identity and access. … At TEC, you are riding elevators with people who are doing the same things you are doing. You are eating lunch with them. You see them over and over again in various sessions. Every conversation you overhear is about something that matters to you. You begin to recognize faces, enough so that if you see somebody later that was at an earlier session, you can ask their opinion on it. Small talk with strangers isn’t about the weather. It’s talking about who you work for, and what kind of deployments you have under your belt, and what your horror stories are.”
--Pamela Dingle, Bonsai Identity
“The best analogy I have for TEC is the video for "No Rain" from Blind Melon where that funky little bee-girl runs around seemingly confusing people as she dances around dressed like a bee in tap shoes. Identity and Access is just like that, we spend all year telling people about it, customers eventually get it, relatives just smile, and spouses do their best, but at TEC we find ourselves surrounded by people speaking the same jargon even if their native language is different, our acronyms are harmonic.”
-- Craig Martin, Oxford Computer Group
“When Gil (Kirkpatrick) asked the audience who had to jump through extra hoops to get to TEC, several hands flew up. Those who went, however, had an excellent, varied and carefully balanced programme waiting for them.”
-- Felix Gaehtgens, Kuppinger Cole
“The US TEC 2009 is now over, and what a great week it’s been. This was the first year that Quest were running the show, and as far as I could tell it was very much business as usual for the conference, with the welcome addition of an Exchange track to the usual Directory and ILM tracks. This conference is well-known for emphasizing practical, BTDT sessions from consultants working in the field over marketing and “slide-ware”, and in that aspect it did not disappoint - and while the shock of the new ILM 2 release date did put a dampener on day one for me, at least the conference also gave me the opportunity to speak directly to Microsoft ILM product team people on the subject.”
-- Carol Wapshere, LANexpert SA
“I am sitting in a session at The Experts Conference (formerly The Directory Experts Conference), an annual conference that was originally started to support those who manage Active Directory. However, TEC has been expanded to include Microsoft's identity and access management technologies, and this year it has expanded to include a complete Exchange-oriented track, as well. Lots of very good, technically-oriented content on managing Exchange and other Microsoft technologies, although I attended an interesting session on e-discovery issues that would be useful for legal counsel to attend. TEC is underwritten by Quest Software and has been assembled and managed very nicely. None of the sessions has a salesy feel in the slightest, but instead are run by consultants and Microsoft MVP-types. … All in all, a very good conference that should be on the short list of meetings to attend for anyone who manages Microsoft technologies.”
-- Michael Osterman, Osterman Research
“I just got back from TEC 2009, an excellent conference that I have the privilege of speaking at, where I always get into great conversations with a ton of incredibly smart folks.”
-- Brian Puhl, Microsoft
“What an event! This was my first time at TEC and I had very high expectations, all of which were surpassed. Three days in Vegas has really sparked a lot of new thoughts and ideas.”
-- Marcus Walshe, Atlas Consortium
“I gotta tell y’all – you are missing a great conference here. Brett Shirley has given two knock’em dead presentations on ESE. The AD Chalk Talk with the AD Team was worth the price of admission. David Espinoza spoke about the Exchange development process and is a heck of a nice guy. Evan Dodds speaks tomorrow morning and has contributed to several talks so far. Ilse gave a great talk on AutoDiscover and taught me things I didn’t know. I recommend you seriously consider it for future conference planning.”
-- Michael B. Smith, MCITP:SA,EMA/MCSE/Exchange MVP
“TEC was the best techie conference I’ve ever attended and it was great to chat with the SMEs on MS topics. It was great to have the ability to ask technical questions and get the answers on the spot without any miscommunication or re-explanation. I hope to attend every year, and given my role as the Active Directory lead, this would be the first conference on my list to attend every year.”
-- Mike Dina, Active Directory Lead, BG-Group
“Once again it was a very high quality conference, with a very nice agenda, high level content and presentations. Another important component of the TEC conference is the ability to access the product teams (in my case ILM) directly, which is extremely valuable to me. I enjoyed the “Chalk and Talk” and the “Birds of a feather” very much. Selecting the sessions wasn’t easy, because of the amount (simultaneous) interesting sessions on the agenda, but I look forward to get the slides and presentations of the sessions online. I’ve learned a lot!”
-- Peter Geelen, Senior Consultant, MCSE:S, MCSA:S, CISA, MVP ILM, Traxion
“You did a great job, based on all accounts. Congrats!!”
-- Charles Coats, Microsoft
"The DEC conference was invaluable to Lockheed Martin in 2008. From Brian Puhl of Microsoft we learned new and more efficient ways to manage our Active Directory Schema. The ability to dialogue one on one with Brian made the Conference a resource to leverage as we improve our management of a growing infrastructure."
-- Ed Ghiglieri, Lockheed Martin // Enterprise Business Services
“The Directory Experts Conference is the most worthwhile industry conference I've ever attended. If I only attend one conference each year, this is it.”
-- Paul Rich, Microsoft / Senior Architectural Engineer
“I liked having opportunities to speak to peers in other companies about similar or same issues and brainstorm some ideas towards solutions.”
-- Rob Michayluk, Bantrel
“The speakers were superb - everyone I heard was an expert and WELL SPOKEN - it is nice to have presenters that are knowledgeable AND know how to present!”
-- Heather Eikenberry, US Department of Defense
“It was truly an amazing experience for my first time out at DEC. I really hope to attend many more; I look forward to the next location.”
-- Juan Ordonez, The University of Texas at El Paso
“Good selection of speakers and sessions. ... Thank you for keeping up the good work!”
-- Tony Yoo, IKEA
“The great access to product manager, technical resources and consultant opinions.”
-- Ernie Haller, Air Products
“It's a great networking and knowledge sharing event. The sessions are very learnfull and meaning full to put in to practice on your job and to be able to look forward to the next few years as to what you should advice which direction management should take.”
-- Alexander Visser, KPMG
“It's AD-specific, which attracts a high-caliber experts both Microsoft and not. Additionally, it's the conference that the AD product team looks forward to every year.”
-- Mark Bakunas, Coca-Cola
“This is my favorite conference of the year.”
-- Laura Hunter, Oxford Computer Group
“I wanted to thank you for those 3 days which were remarkably organized, full of interesting content and with people as nice as they are passionate. I hope I will participate in the next one!”
-- Yvan Kuntzmann, Alcatel-Lucent / Windows Systems Architect
“I'm already looking forward to DEC2007. This year's event was the best conference I had ever been to!”
-- Christoph Kuderna, infoWAN / Managing Consultant
“This conference is for serious Active Directory administrators, managers and those looking to leverage the strengths of the directory.”
-- Dave Kearns, Network World's Directories Newsletter
“Quest CTO Gil Kirkpatrick promises that every attendee will come away knowing more about Active Directory then they did when they arrived. That's a pretty tall order, but one which Quest delivered on at last year's event. I don't foresee that it'll have a problem doing that again this year.”
-- Dave Kearns, Network World's Directories Newsletter
“To me, the content of the Directory Experts Conference was the biggest draw. There was no need to pick apart content as is usually the case with larger conferences.
The lack of hype was impressive. I didn't know what to expect from Quest in that regard, but was very pleased. The conference was toned down and focused.
Microsoft and Quest executives were very accessible, and I've definitely been able to apply what was learned at DEC in my daily work - particularly the information about Windows 2003 feature set, upgrade and migration path.”
-- Cory Beck, Sears, Roebuck and Co. / Senior Engineer, IT
“I wanted to thank you and let you know that you put on a great event. The anecdotal feedback was absolutely 100% positive from everyone I talked to. The organization of the sponsor booths to the rooms worked well as it made the customers interact with the sponsors. The coffee kiosk was a great idea too. It kept us (especially the internationals who’s time change was more severe) close to the sessions and around the Quest booths. :I appreciated being a part of DEC 2008. It truly was an honor to be a part of such a great event. I can only hope I have the same feedback from the surveys of my session.”
-- Mark Foust, Microsoft
“Things are still a bit hectic after DEC (a good thing), but I wanted to send a quick thank you note for both a great event and for the speaking opportunity. The conference was a great success for us and we are extremely happy with the results.”
-- Michael Brengs, OptimalIdM
“I’ll have a lot more to say about this next week, but right now I want to thank the wonderful folks at Quest who put on the Directory Experts Conference – Gil Kirkpatrick, Christine McDermott and the indefatigable Stella DeJean. They put on an excellent event, one that everyone who depends on Microsoft identity technologies – Active Directory, Identity Lifecycle Manager, Federation Services and Windows Cardspace – should attend. You’ll learn more at DEC than you would at Microsoft’s own TechED.”
-- Dave Kearns, NetworkWorld
“I learned about DEC from a colleague in the Active Directory space, and have attended two of the conferences so far.
DEC is aimed at a much higher technical level than other conferences and is a great networking opportunity. In addition to having good access to the presenters, it's even better to mix with other Active Directory colleagues in the trenches and trade information on what works best in real-world deployments.”
-- Josh Russell, Volvo / Systems Engineer
“Attending DEC certainly provides value to my daily work - I probably learn more each time than I could ever accomplish between conferences!
I was very impressed by the DEC entrance requirements. You have to have a minimum of six months' experience using Active Directory in a live network environment to attend. The result is focused, highly-technical sessions that are relevant to my job. At many large conferences designed to appeal to a wider audience, presenters quit just when the content begins to get interesting!
It's great to be able to provide feedback to Microsoft designers of Active Directory and even more valuable to learn from my peers. Quest is smart to keep the event limited in attendance, and the fact that they offer two DEC events focused on AD each year allows multiple people from a company to benefit.”
-- Consultant, Information Services (Fortune 1000 company)
“I truly believe that Quest is one of the best small companies out there doing the most to educate their user base. Keep up the great work!”
-- Byron Boudreaux, State Department
“DEC is the only congress out there that is focused around Active Directory only. The goal of the event is twofold. On one hand, the attendees get information that is hard to find or cannot be found at all in the Microsoft documentation. On the other hand, DEC is the opportunity to do some networking with AD diehards inside and outside of Microsoft.”
-- John Reijnders, LogicaCMG / Senior Microsoft Architect
“I just wanted to again thank you and everyone for coordinating an excellent conference. Please pass this on to your management with my teams' complete satisfaction.”
-- Lawrence (Larry) R. Fondrick, IBM Global Services @ Nissan Data Center
“Best conference I've ever attended! - looking forward to next year.”
-- Paul M. Schulte, Medtronic, Inc. / Principal IT Technologist, Intel Server Architecture
“I am glad I made it to DEC. Every time I attend, I spend the next couple of weeks writing down what I have learned. Man, there are people out there that walk and talk AD, and they know AD like the back of their hands.”
-- Dan Gilbert, U.S. Army NETCOM / Senior Active Directory Specialist |
