We have a lot of exciting plans for Geek Speak Live! in the coming year which I wanted to give you all a heads up on. For those of you who haven't heard of Geek Speak, it's a program of informal and unfiltered discussions on technical topics, usually led by a CTP or other industry thought leader. We kicked off at Synergy in Houston, followed up at Summit in Orlando, then held a virtual version in early December as part of the Turbocharge your Datacenter virtual event. As well, a local version of Geek Speak was held in Des Moines by Michael Keen.

Encouraged by the enthusiasm and support we've received since launching Geek Speak, we are amping up the program in 2009, with larger and more frequent Geek Speaks. The main event will still be at Synergy 09, but we will be also running many more local and virtual Geek Speaks both before and after Synergy. Over the next few weeks I'll be publishing a schedule of events.

One of the objectives of Geek Speak is to have the audience determine what topics should be covered in the Geek Speak sessions. As such, we will be looking to you to propose and vote on what topics should be covered in upcoming Geek Speaks. You can also propose yourself as a speaker if you feel confident enough to lead the discussion (and take the heat from the audience ). Those topics with the most votes will be included in the agenda.

To get the discussion going on topics for Geek Speak Live! in 09, I have started a thread in our forums. If you have no idea of what a Geek Speak sessions looks like, check out some recordings from earlier events here and here.