• Community Lounge - second annual lounge. For those who attended last year's Convergence (or last 2 Worldwide Partner Conferences) this is one of the most fun places to be while onsite. You can hang in the lounge on the comfy furniture, casually network with other customers, other partners, or other Microsofties. Or enjoy a complimentary Aqua Massage (I personally have never had one, but I'm looking forward to this!). We even scored a couple of Xbox 360s! Could be a great time to get away from the daily grind in the concurrent session and have a friendly Xbox tourney - or how about ping pong? I just hope it doesn't get too out of hand  
• Usability Research - my team is initiating a series of usability tests and focus groups around our CustomerSource secure customer portal as well as our public Community site. Invites have been sent out and the schedule is filling up fast - I hope that you will be able to participate as we will use the research to build out future online community experiences. If you aren't able to attend one of our scheduled sessions...stop by the Community Lounge as we'd love your unstructured feedback too!
• The Round Up's - this is a brand new activity for Convergence. We've heard several times in our event feedback that our attendees are looking for opportunities to network with others 'like' them. We hope we nailed it this year by introducing Industry & Role Round Up. Both events are similar in nature. Both will give you a visual indicator of your industry and role. This indicator will help you to network with others in the same industry/vertical and department/role. We hope that you will wear your visual indicators throughout the conference to continue to find those like you. Industry Round Up is on Saturday after the industry sessions and Role Round Up will be on Sunday during the lunch hour.
• Convergencebloggers.net - also new this year, we've created an aggregated blogging site for people who are interested in Convergence. No matter if you are attending or had to stay back at the office and keep watch over the flock...this is a great place to learn about what's going on at Convergence. I'll be posting my thoughts and views on this blog throughout the week of the conference. The Convergencebloggers.net site is an aggregated view of blog posts from the registered bloggers. Register your blog or start a new one just for the event! It's really easy and fun to read what others are thinking about. If you've attended TechEd or PDC, you've likely seen these aggregated blogger sites that are just like this one. It's a great way to keep in touch.
• Community Site Refresh - in preparation for the conference you'll be seeing a new face for the public Microsoft Dynamics Community site. We'll also be introducing a couple of new community features that you'll want to be sure to check out. You'll be able to learn more about (and more from) our Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) plus check out some collaborative videos we did with the Channel 9 team. The new site will launch late next week! Doug may even talk about it in his keynote...guess you'll have to wait and see

As you can see, we've all been very busy making sure things go smoothly for you next week. I hope you will be joining us...if you can't, be sure to checkout the ConvergenceBloggers site to stay up to date!

Yee haw...here we come Dallas!

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Have you ever wished for a way to help other attendees understand ins and outs of Convergence? You’re in luck! An online resource, Convergence 101: Navigating Convergence, is available on the Convergence website. This video is hosted by our very own event MC, the Fabulous Matt G. Check it out and be sure to tell other customers and partners about this great new tool!