Over the course of my time on TTB, I've been doing my best to track down useful information for you guys, either as people who have never been before (the Retrospectives series) or as people coming this year (the Behind the Scenes series).

Today I'm starting something new - the MudHounding series. I first got the idea last week when I met up with Andrew Coates for a few hours when he was in town for the day. While we chatted, we spoke of a few things TechEd - and he mentioned a couple of things in passing that made me *** up my ears. We were talking about cool things that were going to be happening this year, and just enough keywords were mentioned that I could start hunting more information.

My goal here is to snoop out the latest and greatest news about TechEd. The stuff that is supposed to be a surprise. The stuff that no one realised might be interesting enough to blog about. The stuff that no one else has had time yet to talk about.

I've got a few things in the works already, trying to glean peices of information that can be made public. They probably won't all pay off, and I can't promise that I'll be able to get very much. But I can try.

And before you ask - I severely doubt I'll be able to work out the location of the party this year. But I won't stop trying.

If you're reading this and you have any gossip, big or small, feel free to contact me to let me know. Do you work for Microsoft and have some interesting anonymous news to share? Do you perhaps work at the venue where TechEd is being held and have seen some of the stuff going on in trying to organise the event? Are you perhaps able to get Kleefy drunk and can therefore drill him for gossip the old fashioned way? Anonymity guaranteed (if requested)!

Oh, and I'd like to thank Dave Lemphers for the term MudHounding. I think it's a fantastic word for describing the act of trying to snoop up dirt and gossip. I suppose you could also call it 'investigative journalism' but Dave's term is much better.