johnwilker.com

Technology and Conferences, finally some good

Last week was Ignite Denver 7. You can read all about Ignite Denver on the blog, but among all the numerous new things we did to reboot Ignite Denver, we used technology.

It worked awesome!

There were two things we used, Eventbrite’s iPhone app and the Square reader and iPhone app.

If it looks easy, it’s not

It’s weird (both flattering and a little insulting) when people look at what you do, and think, “well if he’s doing it, I can do it” vs. possible partnership, etc. Sure there’s a part of all of us that wants to do things on our own, or own way. But in business especially I think [...]

360Flex San Jose – Recap

It’s been a while since our last 360|Flex. Almost a year in fact. Indianapolis in May.

Since getting back from 360|Flex, I’ve been full tilt forward on 360|iDev (rest? Decompress time, weak sauce!!), but wanted to take a few minutes to write down my thoughts on this latest 360|Flex.

For one thing it was a huge success. We made money. Not a metric buttload, and it would have been more if we hadn’t carried a ton of debt with us out of 2009. BUt still, we made money, and that’s a good sign for the event and the company.

We did a few things (as usual) differently.

We had volunteers to help out. We had I think 8 folks, that got a free pass in exchange for helping out. w had them help assemble SWAG bags, work the reg desk (This was THE first 360|Event where the keynote wasn’t delayed, and where I was able to actually hop up on stage, vs have some one go start the keynote.) work our video cameras (more on that), and in general be around to do whatever we needed.
We had Nicole on board officially. As Tom leaves, Nicole joins. It’s pretty cool to be working with my wife to make the events even better!
Video. We’ve wanted to do video since Seattle ’07. In fact we had video in Seattle, but marketed them poorly. We had Video in San Jose ’09, but it was Adobe TV. This time we decided to go lo-fi to start and see how it works. We used 8 SD Flip Cams, and Camtasia Relay. Volunteers swapped cams out for each session, and set up Relay on speaker laptops. Now that hard part. I’ve got 40+ sessions to process into usable video. We’re not sure what to do yet as far as distribution. Attendees will get the video for free, but I’d love to try and sell access to the video (un-DRM’ed of course) files. I think there’s value in the videos, and think it’d be nice if we could support the company between events with video sales.
Panels. Panels are another thing we toyed with for a while, thinking it’d be cool to do, but never really executing. We decided to pull the trigger. 360|Flex had 3 panels, and they all rocked! Panels are here to stay. We also put a panel as the last session on the last day, to bring everyone together at the end of the conference. The panels are a great way to have all attendees in the same place, and get great discussions started! I’m really excited about the Panels, and can’t wait to do more.
Official hotel while using Ebay. Normally when we do the SJ event, we don’t have an official hotel, or if we do it’s just a room block at the Holiday Inn. This time we went downtown San Jose to the Marriott. Who offered a shuttle bus each day. That worked out awesome! Each day the bus brought everyone to Ebay and took them back to the hotel at night. After the evening receptions, folks bussed back to the Marriott, and partied at the bar, out in downtown, etc. it was awesome.
Over all I couldn’t be happier with 360|Flex San Jose. We had an almost sell out crowd, at about 365 registrations, not to mention the “I had to register?” Crowd that we printed badges for on the fly.

Now on to 360|iDev, San Jose! I can’t wait to see my Apple crew! We’ll all be fresh off iPad euphoria, and ready to talk iPad apps!

Looking Forward, Looking Back

It’s been an interesting year. More so than normal years. It’s also the end of a decade, so I’ve got some thoughts on that too. Fair warning. This is a longy.

Decade first:

in 2000 I worked for a company that was basically an IT Staffing firm that decided to get into software. I worked internally on a web app that would (in their terms) revolutionize staffing. I bailed, they failed, it was 2000, that happened a lot to a lot of people and companies.

I spent most of the 2000′s as a programmer, first doing ColdFusion, then moving to Flex. It never occurred to me to try out M$ tools, or any other. I liked Macromedia (Now Adobe) offerings and stuck with them.

Events, fun and why i do them

360|MAX

Adobe MAX is the annual “geek out” for those of us doing anything with Adobe technologies. It’s a huge event, costs a metric buttload, and is usually pretty over the top. It’s also hugely fun, and a great way to see folks who don’t come out for other events typically. It’s also nice to attend an event that I’m not organizing, or at least not organizing much of.

360|Conferences does an unconference at MAX, to bring some community to the event. It’s always a good time, we get some great speakers to give us some time and share what they know. It was really cool this time that we had some more interesting topics; Arduino/Flex interaction, How a rock band uses Flex/AIR and even iPhone in their performances, etc.

It was a good time.

Next time, we’ll limit talks to 30 minutes. It’s about double the sessions, but I think 30 minutes is a good time slot, we can get more great topics going.

The funnest part of my job (If I can call it that) is doing different types of events. They’re not just always the same event over and over. Even 360|Flex and 360|iDev, while super similar, and based on the same ideals, are vastly different. Then throw in Ignite, 360|FlexPress, and hopefully a Festival of Books, and it’s just a great time bringing people together!

360Flex Indy, done

It was nice for Tom and I to share that InsideRIA, InsideMobile, and 360|iDev are in full force effort mode, coming in rapid succession this summer, starting in July. We’ve partnered with O’Reilly for the first two, and that’s crazy exciting. Tom and I have been working with our Pal Steve at O’Reilly on this idea since mmm well it probably started on the Ebay Town hall patio at the first 360|Flex, yeah it’s been a while in the making. The partnership should really open some door’s for O’Reilly and 360|Conferences.

I build community, organize events, and rock!

It wasn’t a bad break up at all, or anything like that. Anthony and I had several conversations about my role at the company and how best I fit with the company’s needs and goals.

Ignite Denver Wrap, up WXMW Party

I always get so wrapped up in blogging elsewhere that johnwilker.com get’s a bit neglected :( I just finished Ignite Denver a week ago (3/11), and it was a huge success, better than the first for sure (organization wise! Sessions have kicked ass each time). It kinda sucks that people compare it to Ignite Boulder. [...]

360Coldfusion, very interesting

Tom and I thought about doing a CF conference, after I think 360|Flex Seattle. The reason we never went forward with the ideas was CFUnited and CF.Objective().

I’ve thougt CFUnited was over priced and didn’t really offer enough to be worth the price, since I attended in 2005. I’ve never attended CF.Objective(), since by the time it got started up, I was moving into Flex development, but since it bills itself as the Enterprise CF Conference, I found it odd that it was dribbling extra technologies, moving away from CF.

You’re authentic voice, it’s important

Chris brogan has a good post, with his thoughts captured on video I agree completely! I hate self censorship for the sake of simply not offending the thin skinned, Sure I don’t think it’s cool to curse like a drunken sailor for particular reason, but I’m not opposed to the “colorful metaphor” when it applies. [...]

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