A few times a year I try to join some tech conferences from vendors we work with. So that’s especially DELL, HP, Microsoft and VMware. The only downside on being an EMEA citizen is that we get the smaller version of those conferences half a year later. Nevertheless #HPdiscover Vienna was on my schedule from the moment I heard about it. For the first time HP joins all its conferences into one big event where they show everything you can imagine.
At a certain point in time I had to reclaim my request to join the conference at my managers office. I got invited by the HP Social Media team as an “independent blogger”. I must admit that the first time such an invitation comes in, you go home pretty proud about it. In fact, I finally got a decent explanation for my wife why I sit behind my laptop, iPAD or just smartphone for hours after she goes to sleep 🙂
Just one year ago, I was at an HP Technical Conference in Istanbul after which I ranted a bit about their lack of Social Media awareness at this blog post. I certainly hoped this time to see something different.
So what was different being at Discover as a blogger instead of a reseller. EVERYTHING. Lets start of with the travel, hotel, transportation, … OK, lets not. We’re not here to brag. But HP did a hell of a job keeping the “independent” happy. The nicest thing was our winter jacket goodie (picture above). But if you know which bloggers were at the venue, you know keeping them happy will not buy them out. Bloggers like @nigelpoulton (Infosmack Podcasts& TechnicalDeepDive), @knieriemen (NekkidTech Podcasts), @chris_mellor (The Register), etc … are just not that easy to bribe. I even don’t know if all of them were there at HP’s request or at their own initiative.
Nevermind all above mentioned things. Here are some moments of a blogger at HP Discover. Definitly worth doing over! You want to know who else was there with us? Most of them are mentioned in this blog by Calvin Zito (@HPstorageGuy).
The bloggers lounge (aka Bloggers Penthouse). In the front you see @GeeksRoom our “Mexican Racist”, who is for starters not Mexican at all 🙂
