Anyway – That session Thursday with you was my first time seeing Buck speak and it definitely was surprisingly motivating for the time of day, jet lag exhaustion and heat in the room. Very informative, enlightening and, well, fun. Made me go see two of his other presentations the next day.

I am with you, Buck is a great speaker. The kids he has in his University of Washington class are incredibly blessed to have a teacher who loves his trade, can give a great presentation and can make a topic fun and exciting. Microsoft is fortunate to have him and I am glad that we can steal him at PASS summits.

That being said, I would still go to the PASS summit if Bucky Woody wasn’t presenting. There are a ton of great presenters. Sure most of them don’t pull of the dunk tank clown insult routine like he does and make everyone feel equally welcome at the same time. Sure some of the presenters are dry but I go because of the wealth of knowledge, meeting others in the community and having opportunities to network.

I had to go through some hoops to get the company pay for the airfare to a west coast conference, even as a PASS volunteer so Summit cost being essentially negated. I know of other folks who would LOVE to go to a PASS conference but can’t do the travel to Seattle for whatever reason.

If we could have every 3rd Summit (for example) in CST or EST it would allow us to have it at a different time (it’s kind of tough for folks who speak at both PASS and Connections and then fall into the holidays) and it would allow more (and different) faces to be in the audience. Sure we may miss some of the extra MS folks but hopefully MS could foot the bill for at least a couple speakers, we have a community of experts to speak (many pay their own airfare being independent consultants) and it would still be a great time of learning and fun had by all.

It would allow more people to get interested in PASS and volunteering. It would get more people hooked (think meth only your teeth don’t rot out) on the Summit experience and the budget would increase because attendance could come from more first time attendees.

As for me, I’ll pay my own airfare and take FTO if I have to but not everyone can make that choice.

I just looked at your picture and Buck’s and you are starting to look like him!!!