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- The EPNEC facility is a gorgeous technical teaching center located on the campus of Washington University School of Medicine. The facility features a grand theatre, 2 lesser lecture halls, multiple breakout rooms, and is completely enabled with wireless connectivity. The lobby at Geek Day featured a 16' video wall with the Rubik's Cube graphic showing all 21 vendors.
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- Getting ready for the rush. The attendee bags, emblazoned with our Geek Day slogan; "Improve the Species...Breed With a Geek" wait for the 300+ registrants.
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- Check In began at 7 am and in less than an hour we processed 270 people in to the event. Scott Miller's wife Heather was a great help in staying on track with the numbering system. Thank you Heather!
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- Jeanne and husband Kelly Johnson work the sign in desk.
- This was Kelly's first experience at a Geek Day event. Kelly, a lecturer at KU in the Biology Department, was interested to see Geeks of a different kind.
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- Jeanne welcomes Clients, Vendors and Frienemies. The event was attended by 14 Frienemy Companies, 22 Vendors, and 270 Clients making it the best attended Geek Day yet.
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- The EPNEC lobby between breakouts on floors 1 & 2.
- The facility allowed the event to spread out and accommodate nearly double the number of attendees from the previous year.
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- The time between breakouts was spent fueling up on great food & beverages. Breakfast, mid morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and cocktails are provided t Geek Day.
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- Networking at Geek Day is always good. Client companies from 6 states and 3 countries mingled and discussed their challenges and triumphs. Many remark that the Networking is their favorite part of Geek Day.
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- The Internet cafe was a VDI enabled lab. This was the first VDI experience for many attendees and it stayed busy throughout the day allowing attendees to check in at work between sessions..
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- Scott Miller and Jeanne Johnson are the owners of Server Centric and the creators of Geek Day. Here Scott & Jeanne are shown in the Geek Lab in the early part of the day.
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- Jason greets clients in the lobby of the EPNEC. As a contributor on the many boards & blogs, Jason is quite popular with clients who post regularly. Jason is the lead Technical Architect at Server Centric.
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- The official drink of Geek Day is the Caffeinated and Guarana Enhanced Bawls. Bawls, the Geek Day Tie (which reads in binary code: Ties Suck), and many of the door prizes come from the Think Geek website.
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- Available in regular and sugar free, Bawls helps keep the energy level and concentration high and is a favorite of the attendees. Many grab extra bottles to take back to work.
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- Geek Day is fun for everyone, this year featuring Geek Kids shirts and Geek Day Ties for purchase. The attendee shirt this year was a hooded sweatshirt.
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- This year the Server Centric Consulting Excellence in Technology Award was divided into 3 categories; Access, Optimization and Virtualization.
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The food at Geek Day is plentiful and delicious. You can expect a breakfast, mid-morning snack, luncheon, afternoon snack and Happy Hour with - hors d'oeuvres.
Jason Campagna is the Chief Technical Architect at Server Centric Consulting. Jason loves Geek Day because it gives him a chance to host an event for all clients no matter their size, budget availability, or project status.
Scott Miller and Jeanne Johnson are the Co-Founders and Owners of Server Centric Consulting. Scott covers St. Louis and Jeanne covers Kansas City.
Here's Scott sporting the company tie. Our tie is beautiful blue silk, with binary code adornment. If you could read binary code - you would quickly discern the message..."ties suck"
Jeanne Johnson introduces the between breakout entertainment for the day. Animusic is a blend of graphic animation and symphonic musical arrangements and is available for purchase.
Many of the prizes given away at the end of Geek Day are intended to poke fun at the non-geeks among us. This picture shows a cell phone headset that is made of hard black resin and is a replica of the old telephone handsets. For the tech-challenged, this item brought waves of laughter.
Here's Scott Miller with VCP, CCIA David Kinsman.
Here Dave helps us locate the prize winners among the 300+ people vying for the loot.
Unique to Geek Day, the vendor attendees are identified by their attire. All tech people form the sponsors wear a lab coat provided by Server Centric. If they don't have a lab coat on in the lab, they are not technical.
The Geek Lab remains open all day long at Geek Day allowing you to divide your day as you see fit.
If you are considering several vendors for a single project, Geek Day is the perfect place to contrast and compare as they will be set up in the same room.
in 2007 we allowed banners like this, but this year we will limit the lab to our signing only. We think it puts the emphasis where it should be - and that is on the technology only.
Each lab display has a widescreen plasma monitor and bar high tables to make interaction with the vendor easier and more comfortable.
One of the benefits to spending time in the Geek Lab is the chance to meet and network with your peers in St. Louis, Chicago, and Kansas City.
Hands on demonstrations and functioning product examples are the differentiator between a technical tradeshow and Geek Day. The Geek Lab is a PowerPoint Free Zone.
The vendors enjoy spending time networking with one another, as well in the Geek Lab. Some of the very best moments of the day come when they talk to each other and get down to the nitty gritty.
The Geeks from Server Centric constantly debate and discuss technical points and here we have Jason and Dave in a spirited discussion with Doug Westhoff.
Many clients attending Geek Day would never have a chance to meet the developers and decision makers at the manufacturer.
Server Centric takes great pride in making resources available to our community that would otherwise be unavailable.
At Geek Day we can introduce the members of one company working on a new project to someone from another company who may have already faced that challenge.
Many clients are able to offer suggestions to the vendor that are acted upon and sometimes added to new product releases.
We also enjoy providing an opportunity to allow the various representatives from different territories to connect and network.
The Geek Lab is an energized technology playground. We had 25 servers, 2 SAN's, 21 42" plasma screens... Hmmm...that explains why we blew the power....
The Luncheon breakout featured a panel discussion from past and present Excellence in Technology Award winners. Jeanne fielded questions from the audience and panelists answered.
Excellence in Technology Awards are determined by an Engineering vote for the best and most innovative use of the technology components within a project.
Each year Server Centric Awards 3 companies. The trophies are blown leaded glass and like each client, entirely unique. Categories are Virtualization, Optimization and Access.
The staff at Server Centric enjoys the Awards ceremony each year at Geek Day because it gives them a chance to applaud the true technology pioneers in our area.
This years Award winners were GEHA, Washington University School of Medicine, and Ameren.
GEHA won the award in the category of Virtualization fort heir Virtual Infrastructure Availability Design and Implementation.
Washington University School of Medicine won the award in the Access category with their unified access scenario for multiple schools and departments.
Ameren won the award in the category of Optimization for their successful blending of old and new technologies upon the merger with a large company and infrastructure with no disruption to the work.
2004 and 2005 Excellence in Technology award winners; AG Edwards and Whitfield school also participated in the panel discussion with 2006 winners.
Many attendees got their first glimpse of the Wii with our giant media wall games during Happy Hour. Who says Geek can't play sports?
Geek Day is fun - in so many ways.
Look at that form!
Frienemies come from near and far. Here's Terry Anderson from ITS in Oklahoma.
Between speakers the main auditorium was a relaxing place for catching up on email and work while enjoying Animusic.
Here's Scott and Jason during one of the breakouts tying together the concepts for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure - the theme for the 07 event.
Jeanne and Dave prepare the agenda and attendee experience for the day before the sun comes up.
Many really neat prizes are awarded at the end of the day. This fellow walked away with some phat lewtz.
Geek Happenings is our professional management firm responsible for the event. Here's the cordial staff of Geek Happenings with our engineering team.
