Day 1 Keynote Jumps the Shark with Tina Turner Impersonator

I’m live blogging the PASS keynote…it’s 8:38 local time. 

You wouldn’t guess by the PASS website description of the day 1 keynote the tone set right off the bat… 

Senior Vice President, Business Platform Division
Microsoft Corp. 

Ted Kummert will open Day 1 of PASS Summit 2010 by highlighting continued innovation across Microsoft’s business and information platform.  Kummert will explore Microsoft’s key technical investments that help solve the toughest issues for various roles across an organization, from IT Professionals to developers. Kummert will explore Mission Critical applications, getting the most out of your datacenter, and the accessibility of Business Intelligence in an effort to deliver on Microsoft’s vision of enabling data platform customers to be more efficient through integrated tools. Some exciting product announcements will also be shared exclusively with PASS attendees so you won’t want to miss out!
 

We began with a Tina Turner impersonator (I have pix…it DID happen) with a jazzy song, “Simply the Best”.  Wow. We’re stunned, yet somehow geekily pleased and amsued.  Good job, PASS. 

Speaking: Rushabh Mehta PASS Board of Directors President – We’re the best. Yay us.  He introduced the PASS BoD and Exec Committee, and talked about us all making PASS something good – “the best PASS Summit ever” were his exact words. This is remeniscent of the talk I had yesterday with Adam Machanic, when we were comparing conferences. PASS (he opined, and I’m paraphrasing) is much more we-the-people, less abotu it being a SHOW. TechEd (for example) is much more polished.  Now me, I like PASS better…I don’t mind a couple of rough edges, for the benefit of feeling IN, feeling like I’m a part of it. I won’t gush too much, I should pay attention a little bit. 

Over 3k attendees today: 3,807 registrations in 48 countries. For the live streaming keynotes, 4,500 registraions in 49 countries. 

By the way, if you’re not following the #sqlpass hashtag on Twitter, you’re missing out on some huge hilarity…  

Next up Mark Souza @mark_sqlcat ! We’re interviewing him this week #sqlpass Oh dear, he’s dressed as a mad scientist.