360|iDev

This was our second iPhone developer conference and it was a HUGE hit! We saw a 30% increase in attendance, which was awesome! 6 months, 30%, that’s just great! Denver didn’t let us down at all! this city is a treasure trove of iPhone developers. I’m seriously thinking 360|iDev might have a perm home here.

We had a great time! Got lots of incredible feedback, met tons of interesting people. One of the most awesome blog posts (Of the many, many) written about the event, was from David Whatley, who volunteered to speak at the conference at the last minute, completely on his own dime. We also wrangled him into hosting a panel, which was mind blowing!

“To be blunt, the conference was not dominated by stuffed suits, not dominated by nonsense, not dominated by people hawking stuff… there wasn’t even a single prima donna in sight!  People were there to learn from each other, help each other, and band together to achieve their ambitions.  The sense of community, which I feel the whole game industry lost so long ago, was a constant at this conference.  It was, I realized by the second day, home.“

He captures, why I do events. David wasn’t the only person to say something along those lines.

I’m really excited to already be working on the next 360|iDev, in San Jose! Not to mention the next 360|Flex! I can’t wait to see all my new friends, as well as the new people who have heard about the conference and will attend next time.

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!

I’m about to pass out, but wanted to get my thoughts on MAX ’08 day one down on paper.

For Tom and I, MAX San Francisco, started on Sunday. We ran some errands, put stickers on our fliers for 360|Flex Indy, and then headed over to Moscone for some socializing. We hit up the community leader mixer thing, which was awesome. Congrats to the team that organized it.

Monday morning we hit up MAX bright and early, setting up our 360|MAX Unconference area, which is a cool area.

Enter the Keynote. So, oddly enough the keynote didn’t start until 9:30 am, yet the doors opened at 7am. I found it a bit weird since breakfast was just sandwiches.

The keynote was good, I gotta admit, The pre show dude was AWESOME! (video above). Shantanu and Kevin are both great presenters I have to say. Kevin more so, he’s very casual, and seems to be pretty unflappable, even when things don’t go the right way.

The information in general was pretty much what you’d expect, “State of Flash” type stuff, blah blah. One cool thing was some future tech they demo’ed as strictly early labs internal, but really sweet! Screens that know what’s going on around them, even where they’re pointed. I’d post a video, but then it occured to me, it might not be fully “open to the public” I can’t imagine why, but ya never know. It was cool though!

OK, the rest of the day.

Tom and I were pretty much tethered to our unconference area, which went really well. Slow start, but I think we’ll start seeing more people as the word gets out more.

Our sessions were all kick ass, especially Mate and Degrafa, which really pulled folks in. Tuesday has a bunch more killer sessions!

The bummer is not being able to wander around as much as I’d like. MAX for me is walking around the halls, finding people to chat with. This time around, I gotta chat with those who come to us.

The general session for TUesday is supposed to be Gumbo, Thermo, and future goodness. We’ll see. I’ve got my Thermo and gumbo installed to play with.

360|Flex Indianapolis MAX discount!

Also for MAX attendees, make sure to swing by and see Tom or I. We’ve got 100 tickets to 360|Flex Indy, for only $100 each. That’s $150 or so off our lowest possible price. Available only during MAX, so there’s only two days left to get this price!