As I’m sure you know by now, Microsoft has combined all their product conferences for Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Windows Server, and others into a single big even next week in Chicago. I’m packing up my bags and getting ready to head out for a week of sessions and parties.

I’ll be arriving in Chicago on Saturday Afternoon. I’ve got plans for a quite dinner with a few other Exchange Masters who will be in town for the conference. I’ll have to remember not to get too carried away on the first night.

On Sunday, I’ll be spending the whole day in “Building a Hybrid Exchange Server 2013 Environment” pre-day workshop. I’ve been through the workshop labs, and can say it will be an educational day for anyone looking to learn about deploying Exchange Hybrid. Sunday night is the Exchange 2016 TAP party on the 99th floor of the Willis tower. If you’ve never been up there, I recommend a quick stop at the observation deck of what was once the tallest building in the world. It’s pretty impressive.

Monday will bring the Ignite Keynote in the morning. When the breakout session get started, I’ll be focusing on Exchange 2016 and Office 365 sessions. I’ll try to get some Skype for Business and maybe even some SharePoint sessions in if I can. In the evening I’ll be at the “Welcome Reception and Ask the Experts”.

Tuesday will bring more sessions, including “Meet Exchange Server 2016” and Ross’s “Exchange Server Preferred Architecture”. Tuesday night is the Office MVP Dinner, then the always epic Scheduled Maintenance party. I can already feel the hang over starting.

Wednesday sessions on my schedule include “Experts Unplugged: Exchange Top Issues”, “Deploying Exchange 2016”, “Exchange Hybrid: Make Office 365 Work for You”, and “Evolving Distribution Lists with Office 365 Groups”. On Wednesday night you’ll be able to find me at the Cisco, Microsoft, and Intel MVP Social Event.

Thursday sessions I am looking forward to include “Bumps and Blips on the Road to Cloud Nirvana: From On-Premises Microsoft Exchange to Office 365” because Tony loves long session names, and “Experts Unplugged: Office 365 Security”. Thursday night is the Ignite Celebration with Fall Out Boy. I don’t know that I am a huge Fall Out Boy fan, but I’m sure the party will live up to the high standards Microsoft has set at previous events.

Friday morning I’ll try to make a couple more sessions like “Exchange Design Concepts and Best Practices”, and “Demystifying Encryption, Certificates, and PKI” but by Friday morning I am expecting to be pretty spent.

I’ll also be spending some time on booth duty at SPS’s booth (#432), but I don’t think I have worked out the schedule for that yet.

It should be a great week. I hope to see you there.