The Countdown Begins: IT Connections is an Event Designed Specifically for You

Learning. First and foremost, Connections is a learning conference. Things you learn during the week, you'll be able to take straight back to your organization and implement right away. A week at Connections is like 6 weeks of classroom training at a fraction of the cost. I highly suggest you jump out to the Connections sessions schedule and organize your week so that you get the best use of your time there. Take special notice of the day-long workshops that happen on Monday and Friday of that week.

Planning. In addition to fixing your current IT-related issues, you'll also hear about the latest and greatest Microsoft releases like Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2 and related technologies, and Windows Azure.  This will be the very first conference where you'll be able to hear about these new technology advances. Knowing the new stuff that's available will help you lay out your company's technology roadmap and provide excellent data for the annual budgeting process.

Community. You can attend the best technical conference in the world and leave with nothing. It's true. What makes a conference really special is the community and networking aspects. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard event attendees tell me they got more out of a side conversation in the hallway than all the technical sessions. This year at Connections we will be putting Community at the fore and organizing some special events to ensure you connect with the right people. I have some really good friends to this day all because of a little conference we started back in 1998 called the Microsoft Management Summit. Those lasting relationships have provided a huge value to my IT career and I highly treasure them.

Mary Jo Foley and Paul Thurrott will be supplying their knowledge in "The State of Microsoft."

Mark Russinovich will be on hand to give a much anticipated presentation on Sysinternals Tools for the closing session on Thursday, October 3rd, and it will be followed by a book signing for his fiction novels. Mark may even have a special announcement concerning his first book "Zero Day: A Novel."

Leo Laporte, Mary Jo Foley, and Paul Thurrott will be broadcasting live for the "Windows Weekly" podcast episode.