BrainShare Amsterdam is Running Crazy - in many different ways actually. First of all, yesterday (Tuesday May 18) appr. 30 people gathered at 18:00 for the Open Horizons Half Marathon - a beautiful run thru the historic city of Amsterdam - past the National Monument on the Dam, the Rijksmuseum, the Red Light district, the Vondelpark and many other beautifull spots - all linked into a fantastic track created by Sander van Vugt (NL). I joined that run myself and while Sander leaded the pack, I was happy to stay at the end of the group to make we did not loose to many runners along the way. And I was not afraid tho admit that I was the last to finish - after all it was Fun2Run.

Actually, I got some comments from people saying - "hey, great to meet you in your home town" - well, actually I am as much a tourist in Amsterdam as most of the other BrainShare participants. To be honest, I am from Rotterdam and I probably know Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm, Paris and London better than Amsterdam - I have never been to the famous Anne Frank House, the Rijksmuseum or any of the other great attractions - I travel to Amsterdam to visit customers and visit events. However, during the run and the boat trip (more below) I have recognized the need to educate myself on Amsterdam as well - it is a beautiful city and my kids need to lear more about it. I am not sure, as I am from Rotterdam, that I will ever be able to wear a "IAmsterdam" shirt, but you need to visit www.iamsterdam.com to learn more about our beautiful capital.

 

Back to business - on Tuesday we also have build our Novell Universe wall, where Svetlin Petrov (BG) presents all Novell solutions in one big display. And of course we have the Open Horizons Information point, where volunteers from the community help to distribute the BrainShare Surprise package. We got some very cool goodies included in that package, so if you are at BrainShare, make sure to collect this at our booth if you did not do so already. And of course we also had to prepare our Open Horizons Hotlabs, all classroom preparation was done by Rob Bastiaansen (NL) and his crew.

 

So by the end of the Tuesday evening we could finally grab a cold beer/wine/soda and more - satisfied with all our preparations and ready to start with BrainShare. Today (Wednesday morning) BrainShare Amsterdam really started with a keynote expertly presented by John Dragoon (Novell US) and Javier Colado (Novell EMEA), including a presentation with BMW and several other great stuff. Of course the launch of IDM 4 was an important element of this (more at the Novell website and other resources), for me personally the presentation from Wendy Steinle (Novell US) and Ken Muir (Novell US) about Pulse, Datasync & Mobility and several other topics was most appealing. By the way, the keynote was delivered in the central hallway of the Passenger Terminal Amsterdam - this large area was packed tight.

 

After the keynote the first Open Horizons Hotlabs were delivered by Ancel Schouwink (NL) and Mary Shrimpton (UK) - the subject was the "Novell File Management Suite" and based on the feedback we received of the attendees of both sessions our lady-team delivered an excellent job. In the second room Sander van Vugt (NL) and Piotr Zadrożny (PL) delivered the "Xen - High Availability" lab - againb something which was greatly appreciated by the attendees. And the good news is: even Sander was satisfied, as the lab was running smoothly. Meanwhile Svetlin Petrov (BG) was busy preparing ad demoing the Novell solutions in the Novell Universe - next to our information booth at the lower level.

 

At the end of the afternoon the Ocean Diva moored at the Passenger Terminal Amsterdam and it was "All Aboard" for the IDM 4 Launch Party. A great party, celebrating the launch of an interesting solution - check it out.

 

If you are at BrainShare - make sure to check in at our Open Horizons information booth - thanks to RIM we have a cool BlackBerry device to give away !!!

 

For now - that is it - CU @ BrainShare or @ one of our other events.