There are many changes at the Citrix user conference this year. The new name, Citrix Synergy, is only the most obvious difference.

iForum is now a breakout session track, and the IT 2.0 Business Symposium track, the Application Delivery track and the Geek Speak track (including Geek Speak Live! and Geek Speak BarCamp) are all new. There are more technical sessions than ever (over 90 total). There are more industry heavyweight keynote speakers than ever before, and a keynote by a Senior Vice President from the largest software company on the planet (and our most important partner).

For the first time ever, we have an opening keynote from a best selling (and controversial) author on technology and business, and a closing keynote by a very accomplished comedian and actor. Citrix Synergy is shaping up to be the most engaging, interactive, technical and relevant Citrix user conference in our history.

I recognize that many of you across the world will not be able to attend Citrix Synergy for a number of reasons (such as the rapidly increasing costs of energy and fuel). Due to constraints such as distance, time or an overwhelming work load, several of you may have not been able to come to a Citrix conference in sometime (or ever).

The members of the Community and Solutions team at Citrix would like to bring a taste of this conference directly to you. We have put together a plan to show you the face behind the name Citrix Synergy - the faces of the attendees, partners and Citrix employees who all come together to make this event happen. We want to bring you an inside (and unofficial) look at the people and events at our user conference.

Citrix Synergy Underground will bring you inside the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston during the conference. Our team (including Rich Crusco, Vishal Ganeriwala, Gus Pinto and me) will bring you instant text updates from the keynotes via Twitter. You will see numerous live video (via Qik and Mogulus TV) and recorded video interviews (via BrightCove TV). These video will be taken inside the Convention Center common areas and halls, the Exhibit floor, Tech Lab, and Geek Speak Live and Geek Speak BarCamp (no keynote or breakout videos). We plan to speak to as many customers, partners, resellers, and Citrix employees as we can at the event, and show you many of the great demos and new technology that will be unveiled. We hope to give you an inside look at the event that you have never seen before at any user conference.

Our team put together a short video to introduce themselves and the Citrix Synergy Underground site.

(Thanks to Bryon Thomas for pointing me to Qik. Thanks to Gus Pinto for putting together the web page with Microsoft Expression Engine, and Saul Gurdus and his Web Services team for hosting the site for us and providing tech support)

Our underground coverage will begin formally on Tuesday, May 20th. Tune in to http://community.citrix.com/underground to watch.