The Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC) is the premier conference for Exchange and Office 365, so its pretty obvious that at least a part of Altitude must attend. However, for MEC, a part is not enough so we are sending the whole Altitude crew over to Austin, TX!
To raise the bets a bit we not only attending MEC, we are doing it the American way, by going on a road trip. The road trip is an experiment in the ultimate way of “work where you are”. We will do our daily tasks by using the cloud services that we enjoy every day, but this time, while traveling for 1600 miles by car.
Hardware and services to enable us do this:
To get going: Chevrolet Suburban with plenty of space for our crew and a roaring V8
To get online: Huawei 4G modem, battery operated
To get power: 12 volt to 240 volt converter
Stay connected: Lync Online and Skype
Communicate: Exchange Online
Secure access to our project files: SharePoint online
Time reporting: www.timelog.se
Financial stuff like invoicing: www.e-conomic.com
Filming gear: GoPro Hero 3
Laptops: ASUS UX301LA ultrabook
In truck music: This Spotify playlist: #MECRoadtrip – California to Texas
Social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and this Blog
The plan
We arrive in Los Angeles, CA on 22nd of March. We stay there for a couple of days to work in the metropolitan area. Of course, we are sure that Santa Monica Beach is a great place to get inspired on. 🙂 After LA we move our souls to Las Vegas, NV for an exercise in working without any ticking clocks. Is it possible to be creative on the top of the Stratosphere? That one, and many other questions will be answered.
After Vegas, its time to hit the road again. This time, we head south, to Tucson via the Hoover Dam. Will the amazing sight from the top of the dam be inspiring or not? It’s time to find out. After Tucson we head east to El Paso. El Paso is a small city on the Mexican border and we must verify if it’s still possible to create something useful if we end up sitting in a Mexican bar. After El Paso we continue to Odessa to calm down a bit. The flat landscape will probably give us great cellular reception so syncing our OneDrives up to the cloud shouldn’t be a problem.
After Odessa it’s time to arrive in Austin, TX to return the rental and check in at the MEC Conference.
Follow our trip on Twitter, hashtag #MECRoadTrip and on this blog. If you tweet a photo of our car during our trip, we will buy you a beer while in Austin!
