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An Overanalysis of the WPC Attendee Bag

I went to the convention center in Houston on Sunday afternoon to register for the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference and to get my attendee bag. It's fine -- a black and orange affair with a laptop compartment and a surprisingly nice silver water bottle.

But having attended nearly 10 years worth of Microsoft conferences, including eight TechEds, a WinHEC show, a Windows 2000 deployment conference and now three WPCs, I have to say, partners get the worst bags of the Microsoft constituencies. The TechEd bags especially always made for great gifts. Microsoft, what gives?

Personally, I think Microsoft hit its bag-design stride in the 2000-2001 timeframe. Of course, that was back when the whole industry was spending like crazy on schwag. (The kids were much more excited to see me come home from shows in those days.)

Meanwhile, I had a black leather bag from Unisys with a very subtle logo that I used to carry. But I've gotten tired of hauling around vendor-branded bags at shows so I picked up my own this last year. I met a Microsoft technical presenter at a public-sector LAR conference earlier this year with a rugged bag from a paramilitary outfitter called Blackhawk, and I ordered my own the next day.

Have a favorite show bag of your own? What's carrying your computer?

Posted by Scott Bekker on July 07, 2008


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