TechEd 2014 Countdown Show Ep. 10: The One with the Content Catalog and Session Builder

Episode 10 of the TechEd Countdown Show may have gone live yesterday, and the topic was the Content Catalog. Rick Claus (@RicksterCDN) and Joey Snow (@JoeySnow announce (prematurely as it turned out) that the Content Catalog was live.

Apparently there were some technical or schedule issues yesterday because the Content Catalog was nowhere to be found. No need to fret, however, as the Content Catalog and Schedule Builder (for registered attendees) are now live.

TechEd may be a couple months away, but now is a great time to start building that schedule. It is very important that you start identifying sessions to attend. The conference planners use this information to decide how to allocate rooms. Nobody likes to show up to a session and find the room is completely full with people milling about outside while the session next door has row after row of empty seat.

Something new this year (and something I asked for over and over) is the ability to set priorities on your sessions. It has long been a best practice to add multiple sessions to your schedule to have a backup session in case the room is full or you change your mind at the last minute. The problem with double-booking is it makes some sessions look more popular than they really are. New this year is the ability to set a preferred and alternative session. Now you can identify which one you’re most likely to attend, and the planners now can apply the appropriate weight to session selections when making room decisions.

The other big change this year is Instructor-Led Labs (ILL) require pre-registration to reserve a seat. If you’re planning to attend an ILL, add it to your schedule now. Don’t wait and let those seats run out. Please be considerate though and only register if you plan on attending. If you change your mind, make sure you go back and remove it from your schedule so that your seat can be offered up to someone on the wait list. Before May 5, you can reserve a seat in up to four ILL sessions. After May 5, you can reserve a space in an unlimited number of ILL sessions if space is available.

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You can always find The TechEd Countdown Show over at Channel 9, but why not just watch it here? Enjoy!