“Beer, Wine, Whiskey, Tequila”? was the question jokingly positioned to me from the guy at the drive-up liquor store. Yes, in a state where it’s difficult to find a grocery store that sells alcohol, they have a drive-up liquor store. Of course, being from California and it being incredibly hot in Denver at 6 pm, I decided to give this guy a bit of a test and asked for a 2004 Conundrum (play on words intended). One option down I thought to myself as I waited for the guy to scurry about the store. Much to my surprise, he produced a 2005 and asked “would you like it chilled?” Drat, another option!

I took my chilled bottle of California white table wine to a friend’s house for a very nice dinner. He’s a retired Army General, so there weren’t many options there—other than “Would you like a margarita to start?” Well, hello, have you met me? A margarita is my second favorite drink.

Anyway, after dinner I sat at the hotel bar and worked my way through the 192-page Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference guide – plus its three full 8.5x11 page addendums! Just trying to understand the options required a glass of wine. Don’t blame me… in addition to the three hours each day of keynotes, there are 21 options for each open session, three sessions a day for nearly three days. That’s 180 options! And I only get to go to 9 of them??!?!? Oh, the pressure to pick good ones.

The session topics range from the weird to the wondrous and are coded for one of the seven “tracks” you might consider – enterprise, Mid-market, Small Business, OEM/System Builder, ISV, Distribution and something called “Microsoft Business Solutions” (I thought they all were – other than the XBOX of course, and I didn’t see a session on that. Yes, I looked!). Several sessions, including “Sales Leadership: A Fulcrum for Success,” indicated the topics are appropriate for six of the seven tracks (sorry, Small Businesses, I guess you don’t need sales leadership, or it’s not the fulcrum for your success). However, the session “Making the Microsoft Customer Campaigns Work for Your Business” seems to not be appropriate for any track. Is that because the Microsoft customer campaigns don’t work for solution partners? Hummmm….?

It’s just now 11 pm local time and the bar is starting to hop. Conference goers are checking into, saying hi to colleagues and planning tomorrow’s booth strategies. Of course, over half are Microsoft employees distinguishable by the “Windows Vista” backpacks they are carrying verses the “Microsoft Partner Summit” shoulder bags for the attendees. It’s interesting to witness the ingress faster than the egress at 11 pm – when we all know that Allison Watson kicks off the event at 8:30 tomorrow morning. The options are still running rampant here – head out for a quick burger, walk over to the cabaret club, head to your room for email, have another drink and stay to watch the home run derby on Sports Channel? I’m happy to option for an early escape tonight, so I can live through another three nights of social options. I’ve learned over the years, pace yourself. Too many options aren’t always a good thing.