One of DEC's unique traditions, besides the ubiquitous rubber chickens*, is its annual Challenge.
Every year, Microsoft group program manager Stuart Kwan issues a challenge at the end of his keynote. This challenge was to Wook Lee of HP, who at the beginning of the challenge was HP's schema czar and directory architect. The challenge was typically to provide technical guidance of some aspect of Active Directory, but presented in an unusual manner...within 24 hours. Last year he presented secure authentication in the form of a Kermit the Frog karaoke sing-a-long, in Powerpoint, to the tune of The Rainbow Connection. And he did it remotely, by telephone.
This year, because Wook is in a different role at HP and HP IT won't let him attend, Stuart Kwan has altered the Challenge to be the "Wook Lee IT Pro-Am Memorial Challenge" ("Memorial" because Stuart declared humorously that Wook is just dead to him, because he couldn't attend either of two conferences). This evolution of the Challenge is now handled by volunteer committee, which I joined.
The Challenge is to talk about Active Directory forest recovery in the form of a movie poster. At least I think that's what it was, because we all only saw the Challenge once from Stuart's deck.
Our response was to create "Indiana Joe And the Forest Of Doom", a movie poster featuring:
- Joe Richards as Indiana Joe
- Dean Wells as Outa Ram
- Jorge de Almeida Pinto (aka Princess Jorge) as Willie Boot
- Stuart Kwan as Shortly Rounded
- Cameo appearances by Wook Lee and Guido Grillenmeier as the Phantoms
It was well received, hopefully setting a good standard for future Challenges.
*One of the speakers brought in 75 rubber chickens in his luggage from The Netherlands. Why Gil needed imported chickens I'll never know.
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