Lately they’ve added to the Board of Directors which is what caused the twitter discussion. I should be clear I have no problems with anyone on the list, and actually really respect Joel Spolsky. However no one on that list represents the “app maker” community. Sure many of them employ and manage app developers. Some of them make money from developers leveraging their platform, some of them love talking about apps. But for something called the “App Developers Alliance” I’d expect people actively developing apps to be on the BOD. And that doesn’t seem to be the case.

I mean as a comparison, Appsterdam is run by people making apps. Not people managing people who make apps, or people who invest in apps, or who want to sell ad networks to app makers. It’s run by coders.

It seems the whole point of the alliance is to bring together those who have platforms they want developers to use (buy), and then, well I don’t know what after that. Looking at the service discounts, it’s a mix of companies that represent the BOD’s employers or investments, which seems a little shady to me.

They’re also not open to criticism it seems because After Tim and I made our points the conversation went dead. I personally avoid companies who can’t operate transparently, ESPECIALLY when it comes to criticisms. It’s also worrisome that when confronted on the lack of app developers on the BOD, the conversation ends.

I’m not (yet) condemning the concept of the App Developers Alliance, but I am seriously questioning it’s motives, and will be watching with great interest. I think things like 360|iDev and 360|Flex would be a perfect fit. Not from a sponsor standpoint (they do mention loving to sponsor events, but I suspect that’s just for marketing purposes). I think events that are really and truly focused on the developer community make a ton of sense for an organization that also claims to be focused on the developer community. If our focuses align, it seems like a great fit. The “if” is the big question right now, and I’m waiting to see if there’s an answer.

It’s been a roller coaster for sure, in both good and bad ways.

I had to cancel (sort of) my first event. 360|MacDev 2011 had to be pushed out until this year (in fact it’s next month, you should check it out and spread the word) because another event scheduled themselves right on top of me, and while their event isn’t known to be very good or in the same realm as mine, they had way more marketing money, so I didn’t want to compete. In the end it was probably a good thing, since I could focus on 360|Flex 2011, which for the second time ever, sold out.

For 2011 we decided to move from our 2x a year schedule to a annual event model. I loved doing two events a year for the various communities, but as more me-too confs started popping up it got harder and harder, plus the community it turns out doesn’t have 2 events a year in them for the most part. Many treated the 2/year model as 1, just picking one to attend and skipping the other. Plus as Flex matured there wasn’t much new stuff happening every 6 months. Adobe released major versions closer to yearly, so the odd event wasn’t a news event. It definitely helps to have big announcements at events.

360|Flex has only sold out one other time that I recall, the very first one in 2007 at Ebay. Since then we’ve gotten very close, but never hit it. This past year we sold out, and over sold by 22. It’s typical in conferences to have a no-show rate close to 15%. the last 2 360|Flex’s had rates closer to 3% which is incredible.

Towards the end of 2011 Adobe thru some serious monkey wrenches my way. They made some very big business decisions, that coupled with their truly terrible PR efforts made it seem like the world was ending for the Flash/Flex community. In the end after a whole lot of damage control, it’s clear the future is still bright, if not a little less shiny for Flex. At first my heart sank, coming out of a hugely successful 360|Flex 2011 and lots of excitement for 2012, to “OH no, Flex is dead” was a huge bummer. After talking to Adobe, and making sure I was on the same page tho, I’m very excited for 360|Flex 2012 and what the future holds.

360|iDev 2011 also sold out. It went to an annual model and sold out more than 50 over what we planned. That of course was a problem given our venue’s size, but the event was still a huge success. 360|iDev has never sold out before that, so that was a huge milestone for us! The iOS community is incredible! I can’t wait for 360|iDev 2012 and some other stuff that is still in the planning phases.

2011 taught me that too many businesses are out for theirs, fuck you. They’ll act nice, they’ll smile, but in the end they want their money and to hell with you. That’s counter to how I run my business so it pains me to have to act like that, but 2011 showed me that in the end, no one is interested in my business succeeding but me. That sucks. Business (to me) should help each other when they can. It’s not a zero sum game despite what they think. Screw you pay me, is a terrible business motto that leads to bad things, and everyone loses.

Ignite Denver had an interesting year. We ended 2011 with a GABF themed event. Much like communism and other -ism’s GABF/Free beer seemed like a great idea on paper. By intermission much of the beer was gone, and the crowd was very drunk. That kinda sucked and the second half presenters really had to work to be heard and i hate seeing that. Overall everyone had a blast, but from an organizational standpoint it was a night mare. Ignite Denver in 2012 is up in the air.

Never one to bitch about being too busy, i just keep finding new things to do. Along with my friends Jake and Rich, I opened a coworking space. Denver has no shortage of coworking spaces, but few are aimed at actual community and none were aimed at creatives alone. We don’t want realtors, lawyers, telemarketers, or acupuncturists at Uncubed. We want developers, designers, startup’ers, etc. Our goal is to make Uncubed the Tech hub of Denver. Sadly until now there really wasn’t one. Tech meet ups had to suffer at Forest Room 5 and their shitty meeting space, or at other bars that were happy to have them and their money but provided little else, least of all internet! Denver needs and deserves a space that the tech community can rely on and hang out at, that’s Uncubed. Whether a member of coworking or not, techies are welcome. Meetups are welcome. let’s Hack!

It’s been a long time since I had an office to go to, and it’s been nice having a place to show up each morning and hang out with other people doing awesome things. Conversations on coding, business practice, etc break out, and it’s awesome. We’ve even entered an autonomous vehicle competition with some of our members, so Team Uncubed will be rocking a robot soon.

Travel wise 2011 was a slow year. Since we home based the conferences in Denver and went to an annual model we didn’t have excuses to travel. So long status with Frontier. I definitely miss traveling, I love Denver but love seeing new places too. 2012 is shaping up to be a heavy travel year, which is cool, and stressful, LOL.

My sort of personal motto is don’t talk about how busy you are, be busy.

Personally 2011 was a good year, it marked one more year with my awesome wife Nicole. It marked the first full year with our new puppies Paco and Winston and it showed me that while things are tough, there’s good to be seen and had everywhere. It also more than any other year saw me thinking more about mortality. Steve Jobs passing was a huge hit for me. Not because he was an idol of mine, all evidence seems to point to his being a complete dick head. BUT he was a visionary and we need those, we have too few, and they’re getting fewer. I thought about my legacy should I die sooner than I plan, and the legacy of those around me in technology and business. Not a cheery thing to think about but needed.

2011 was shitty for more folks than it should have been and that’s never good. Especially since in most cases it wasn’t their faults. I’m glad to see the economy is starting to turn around, even if only a little.

Lastly I guess 2011 was great in that I spent as much time as i could with friends and family. Whether out camping or just enjoying Denver’s warmer months on rooftop decks and bars enjoying good beer. I’m sure there’s a lot of things that happened this year that I’ve overlooked, but hopefully I caught the important ones.

Thanks to all my friends and family for 2011 and here’s to making 2012 kick ass like Chuck Norris.

You know an industry is bloated and corrupt when they’re first and only motivation is profit, even and especially at the expense of return business. That’s the Hospitality industry. They don’t care if your event sucks, another is dying to book the space next year.

It’s a lot like banks being too big to fail, hotels are too needed to fail, at least in the conference organizer world. It’s hard to do a conference without a hotel, even if you host the event elsewhere, you need hotels for your attendees, whether you make any special plans or not. It’s way worse when your event is at a hotel, then they have you.

Don’t sell enough tickets and fill guest rooms? They can charge you for possible losses whether losses actually happened or not. Kind of an insult to injury scenario since not selling enough tickets is a huge hit on it’s own.

They deliver a crappy experience? so what, you still owe them nearly 30% service charge for bad service.

This is super generalized, and I’m not naming names, but my current situation, is a direct reflection on this corrupt industry. Hotels are not conference organizers’ friends. Some are awesome and nice and I enjoy working with them, and they earn their 30% service charge (I still think that’s a ludicrous amount, and is highway robbery, but they at least work for it) busting their ass, not for me, for my attendees. When attendees compliment me, i pass it on to the hotel staff who deserve it. Great meal, i didn’t cook it. Great staff who helped solve problems, not me. Others simply suck, say they’re sorry, smile and hold their hand out for their check. It works the same here.

All things flow to the organizer, whether it’s a good or bad experience, whether it’s his fault or doing or not. Hotels love to hear the compliments, they smile, they nod, they give each other awards for it, etc. But telling them where they dropped the ball, well that’s helpful, but please pay your bill as you leave.

As a small and struggling businessman it pisses me off. When things go right, the model of conferences that don’t cost and arm and a leg works really well, but it’s a fine line for sure. I knew that going in. I still do conferences like this because I know it can work. Not because I’m an idealist and haven’t made any money, but because I have made money. Sometimes it’s enough to make sure I can eat and pay the mortgage, sometimes it’s enough to look back and smile at a job well done and know the next event has a bit of a buffer in the bank.

example:

When someone emailed me to complain about the video quality of a session recording (he bought the bundle, $85 worth) i refunded him the entire order. Told him to keep and hopefully enjoy the rest of the videos, and that i was sorry and session videos are something we’re trying to do better at.

What I didn’t do, was say, you bought hundreds of hours of video, for $85, and you’re complaining about 70 minutes? On their own the videos are only $3.50 because they’re not super great. they’re good, some are great, some aren’t, but at $3.50 you’re not out a lot of money, and you most definitely get AT LEAST $3.50 worth of value from them. Most often you get way more than that. I didn’t say anything about that. I didn’t say other events charge way more. I didn’t point out that video sales help cover hosting costs, and buy coffee. I didn’t point out that he probably pays more for Angry Birds levels, and that one video is less than a grande latte. I certainly DID NOT apologize and thank him for his money.

I apologized, and refunded the money. I have no idea if he thought the other videos were bad or not. Frankly i don’t care. He had a problem with one, and to me making sure he remembers that my event is run buy a stand up guy is more important. Will he attend next year? Probably. Hopefully. Sure $85 and what the hotels want isn’t the same, BUT it’s less about the money and more about that customer service, and frankly not being a money grubbing suckwad. And yeah it’s a little about the money too. I’ve refunded conference passes in the same fashion before.

A recent conference I organized had basically 50% crappiness level. Thru no fault of my own, no balls I dropped. No loose ends I neglected to tie up. The first two days had useless internet, tons of balls dropped, things not set up like I asked sponsor tables not where they should be, my reg table not set up right, etc. etc. Worst of all the A/V was useless pretty much 80% of the conference. The guy was never where he was needed, feedback was everywhere, etc. It was terrible. One general session was effectively ruined, as was the session recording) by feedback that made your head hurt. Things got ok the last two days (AV not withstanding), not stellar, not OMG you’ve raised the bar, just good.

As a businessman this is where i get annoyed. I’m the guy who’s gonna write  a check for 100k and you can’t get my reg table right? or my sponsor tables? Sure if I had the space for free, you were doing me a favor etc, I couldn’t and wouldn’t complain, but I am paying. I’m paying A LOT. and things like power strips aren’t put where I asked?? Really?

Did the hotel offer anything for those fuckups? no. Well to be fair I got lots of ‘sorry’ and ‘our bad’ and ‘we fixed that eventually’ and of course ‘next time you don’t need to use that AV company’. When I complained, nicely because I’m a nice guy, and I try to compose myself in business as partnering with vendors and customers, I got song and dance about discounting the service charge on Food/Beverage would make that team think they sucked. I finally got a tiny (relative to the bill) discount on NEXT YEAR. So it’s back to, “we’re sorry we did a bad job, please pay your bill in full as you leave” never mind that in this case, i’ve yet to get a bill that’s correct. Every bill has had errors in my favor and theirs. You can’t adequately bill someone? Hell I’ve tossed invoices when I messed up and just given the sponsor a free ride to show I wanted their future business. THis hotel is busting my ass about a bill i’ve yet to agree is correct.

This has happened 2x, well kinda 3x. Each one was a hotel that didn’t see me as a valued partner, but as the guy who no matter what happened the next four days, would be writing a check for more than 100k. When you think like that you don’t do your best job because you don’t have to. Every year I bust my ass to make sure my sponsors know I want them to succeed, because at the end of the conference, they will either come back or not, based on how I did. That is 100% NOT an issue for hotels. Because of how I think business should be run, I did exactly what they expected. I wrote checks for bad or non existent service. MY sponsors wouldn’t, not for a second, they’d say thank you, we won’t be back. Sadly some have, and I’ve regretted each time, and tried to make sure I learned from those mistakes. Attendees who were treated by me, like I am hotels, wouldn’t come back, and might ask for a refund. Heck I refund people 3 weeks from the conference. Hotels fuck you 6 months out if you need to cancel. Too bad so sad!

It’s a very one-sided relationship. Sadly the conference industry doesn’t help. Most organizers are marketing departments or internal event organizers, etc. While they have a budget target, etc, at the end of the day they don’t care. They still get paid, they can still eat. So what if there’s a 30% raping on top of $4 cans of soda, and $6 cupcakes. It’s not their money. I know they don’t care, because that’s how business works. If hotels didn’t have people lining up to pay $4/can for soda, they wouldn’t charge that.

So this is also kind of an open letter to my fellow organizers. We can do better. We should do better. I’m going to start doing better. To the hotels, well fuck you guys, you don’t care about me, and I’ve hardened my heart to you, so now we’re enemies and fighting each step of the way. That’s not how business should be, and really not how I want business to be done, but it seems in the short term, there’s no choice.

Who’s going to step up and be Apple? Heck, where are our Hewlett and Packard? Our Michael Dell?  Bill Gates?

I work in a space with a fair amount of startups, and being so close to Boulder I hear about a lot more of them, and of course I’m in the Silicon Valley for events a fair bit too, and of course I follow my friend Eric Norlin. So I’m not uninformed when it comes to startups.

I know there’s awesome startups out there doing cool things (like Bloom). I work in the same building as one. But in looking at them and at most other startups, I wonder, who’s solving tomorrow’s problems? Who’s working on making the next big thing? NOT the next thing for AOL or Google to acquire. It seems that most startups are starting to be bought by someone, existing more than 5 years isn’t in the plans. That certainly is the exit that makes the most financial sense for their backers, and the founders even. I wonder sometimes if our VC and Angel worlds are so wrapped up in ‘quick bucks’ and early exits, that they’re encouraging young founders to not focus on building companies that can or will be around 20 or 30 years. Let alone build companies that are focused on tomorrow’s problems. Sure messy contacts, old school comic readers, and lack of robot balls are problems worth solving, that’s not my point. My point is there should be a balance, and I don’t see it.

Looking at Techstars and Ycombinator I see awesome companies making cool things like gMail plugins and robot balls with LEDs in them, and new takes on training sites, sites about treating musicians like stock, and such. But I wonder will any of them exist in 5-10 years? I suspect not. They’ll either have folded up and moved on, or been absorbed into some other larger thing. And that’s ok in it’s own right, but where does that leave us? The Country of Dell and HP and Apple and Microsoft? I feel like it leaves us with a sad lack of innovative long term tech companies. VCs are bitching about immigration policy not letting tech founders into the country in high enough numbers. I’d argue the gov’t should be looking at these VCs and asking where the companies that will lead innovation are and why they aren’t helping build them? I’d be thrilled to let the next Bill Gates in on a Startup Visa, but not if he plans to simply build something he can sell to Microsoft for a quick buck.

I know in startup circles and no doubt in VC circles getting acquired is a win. In my book it isn’t. I remember sitting around beers with some friends talking about a company in Boulder that was bought before it even left private beta. To me that was a fail. Sure they made out like bandits, everyone got paid. But they were barely a business, they had maybe a few customers, maybe a few hundred, but they were beta testers not paying customers. I suspect that’s why I’m drawn towards brick and mortar style businesses. Conferences, coworking, etc. Because those businesses are immune or less politely often excluded from the hub bub of tech investing. Therefore for the most part they require bootstrapping which it seems so many startups can’t or won’t do. I’ve seen ideas live and die based on acceptance to Techstars. While I have no doubt Brad Feld and co. know a winner or at least a good horse when they see it, I’m sure they’d agree they can’t see all the winners (or losers) all the time.

That kinda brings this all back around for me. I’ve never asked for money or (at least yet) taken out a bank loan for 360|Conferences or Uncubed. I live and die by what I can do on my own (or with partners as the case may be). In both cases i think to myself often, are these businesses that will be around in 10 years? Can they be a legacy, can I actually do something good with them? I think both can. I don’t know if either will, but I think both can, and I’m happy to try and find out. I think both started for the right reasons. Trying to change systems that exist, for the better of the communities they exist in,  which to me is the right reason to start a business. Will I get rich? be acquired by someone? Probably not on both counts, but that’s ok because that wasn’t and isn’t my motivator. I like money don’t get me wrong :) I want to live a comfortable life, but that’s the extent of it. I don’t need to make something someone else wants to buy so I can pay back investors and retire at 35.

I wonder if startup founders go to bed at night thinking about the future. Not the future where they get bought, where tech crunch writes them up and they secure yet another round of funding. A future where they employ thousands. A future where they and their product/service are shaping lives. A future where they make a difference for more than a year. Sure payroll next month is important, press is important I’m not discounting that, but if they’re not thinking about 10 years from now, I’d say they’re doing it at least a little wrong.

360|Conferences is a weird startup. Well not really, but in the circles I travel it is. People I know and interact with are starting the next foursquare, the next yelp, etc. I’m running a services business, organizing conferences. Something that very few do outside publishing companies… I am in a venture with two friends, that while not in stealth because that’s lame, there’s just not much to talk about yet except to say go here

I’ve wanted to quit several times. Back when my business partner was Tom, and even more recently when it was just Nicole and I. Whether it was the fickle nature of speakers and attendees or sponsors who I give my all to, to support them, and who in turn also sponsor events that treat them like just one more logo on the site.

I stole this from Jason’s post (which if you haven’t already, go read in it’s entirety!)

This graphic really sums up the experience for me, so far.

It’s a roller coaster and I wouldn’t trade, but like all things theres lots of lows, to slog thru if you want to succeed.

The post is a good read and I’ve had similar experiences where the value of my product (the conference, my email list, the attendees) has been under valued, and bargained for, and where I’ve had to choose the high road or the low. I’ll be honest I’ve chosen both, but am now more comfortable taking the high, and living the the nagging feeling i chose wrong (even when I know I didn’t)

It worked awesome!

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

First eventbrite’s app

The Upside

It worked really well. We loaded the Ignite Denver account onto Nicole and Shelly’s phones and as people came for Ignite, we were able to to check them off. It was great not needing printed lists, and sharpies to cross off names, etc.

It was great that one phone could see who the other had checked off.

The downside

I doesn’t show “will call” people. Or rather it shows them but doesn’t indicate that they still need to pay. The printed check in lists, put an orange highlight with a note about needing to pay at the door. The iPone app doesn’t do that so folks who don’t remember or choose not to remember that they need to pay, slide right in. Not a really big deal, since there’s ever only a few of those types of tickets at Ignite Denver, but I can see that being a problem for other events.

Square Reader

When I first got my Square at WWDC, I figured I’d have little to no use for it. Maybe we’d be the only garage sale around that took credit cards, but otherwise I couldn’t see many uses. Until we decided that to continue existing, Ignite Denver had to charge $5.

We used Eventbrite, to sell tickets, but always (unless we sell out) sell tickets at the door. Normally it’s cash (or check) only.

This time we could take credit cards, and it rocked!!  I actually wish we used the iPad app, which supports custom “items” but it was still easy to use the iPhone version.

I will say this, the android version. SUCKS. We tried to use it first and got nothing. No user feedback, etc. switched to the iPhone version and it was cake. “swipe faster, bad read” Etc. it was easy to get it figured out.

We didn’t sell a bunch of at the door tickets, but it was nice to just be able to accept credit cards and be done with it.

The app worked great, as did the service. We might have even convinced the theater to look into using Square vs. their existing, expensive POS system.

Over all I’m very very happy with our use of technology, and look forward to using these tools at our larger events. Especially Eventbrite’s app.

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 that’s a kiss of death more often than not.

In particular I’m talking about conferences. I’m pretty good at it. I find interesting people, technical experts, etc and get all together under one roof. It’s a ton of fun, I wake up every day loving it. The actual days of the event, I’m moderately calm and collected, because I have my shit together. I obsess, and freak out up until the first day, after that I’m reasonably sure I’m good to go.

So yeah, the days that people actually see me, I’m happy, I’m talking to people, hanging out an joking. That doesn’t in any way shape or form, mean the 6 or so months leading up to that aren’t full of stress, craziness, and working my ass off.

Yet somehow it’s caused at least a few folks I know of to decide they want in on the action. Fair enough, after all, it’s business.

It’s business!

You don’t go into business without a plan. Heck, the first 360|Flex, wasn’t a business, it was a one off, a completely lark. After that Tom and I realized it was fun and we enjoyed it, and other people seemed to like the event. THEN it became a business. A not profitable business the first few events.

This ain’t the field of dreams!

You can’t just say, “Hey everyone! I just made up a new event, come on out” and expect to be a success. Well if you live in Boulder that seems to work ok, otherwise not really. You have to get people involved, wrangle speakers and sponsors, etc. I’ve seen one event almost implode costing the organizer a buttload of money because it seemed they thought, that just organizing the event was enough. That people would flock from near and far to attend. I’ve also seen a recent event (most likely, sadly I’m the only conference organizer that believes in transparency as far as I know) lose a ton of money because the organizer didn’t realize how much everything costs, didn’t realize how much to charge attendees, etc.

I’m no expert, I don’t intend to stop learning, but I did learn the hard way, what works and what doesn’t. I’m still learning that.

What really irks me about this “problem” is that not only does it impact my business in the short term, people choosing that event over mine (when they’re in the same space) but it hurts consumers/attendees, and even sponsors. They waste their money on what turns out to be a less than awesome event, with little chance of repeating, and are now jaded.

Thankfully I have a history of success now, but still, kinda bums me out.

Oh and if someone tries to tell you conferences are dead, just turn around and walk away. They’re either an online event snake oil peddler, or out of touch with the realities of business and events.

Just sayin.

To screw Apple. It’s clear that no matter how much, begging, suing (this is a bad idea anyways), cajoling, “I’m with Adobe”ing, etc, takes place, Apple has given the one finger salute to Adobe. That’s that. It’s their phone, there’s lots of other handsets for Adobe to play with.

Frankly, as much as I’d love to have Flash on my iPad (not my iPhone though) it’s Apple’s call. I don’t agree, but since they don’t call me to ask my opinion, I assume they don’t care.

Palm is for sale. The Pre is a nice phone, it’s actually frakkin sexy, I dig it. WebOS, isn’t that bad either. If Palm had 1. not gone with Verizon, and 2. listenned to their developer community, and 3. not been retards about brand/marketing/and reach, the Pre would be a huge hit. Instead, Palm is for sale.

Picture this.

Adobe buys Palm. Retools WebOS (or goes android, but I think that’s a bad idea) to be more Flash focused. Basically create a “Flash Phone” Build out a marketplace, somewhere between Draconian Apple, and Hippy-free-for-all Google, for Flash devs to build and sell their apps. SELL. Adobe, you build the market, and back out. Don’t start building your own things and giving them away for free. That screws your community over, cut it out!

Flash Devs have been denied a reliable, useful marketplace… well pretty much forever. Companies like Litl are working on devices to show how awesome Flash apps (Channels) can be, and hopefully help developers make money too. Adobe could easily kill some of their soon-to-be-dead-but-no-one-knows-it-yet projects, and focus on a mobile SDK for Devs to build stand alone “apps” that the “Flash Phone” could run.

Apps that exist as good citizens, outside a browser, as a standalone executable/process. They kill when closed, and don’t burn through the CPU. This is totally possible!

I know I’d buy a Flash Phone (assuming it’s the Pre aka nice hardware) in a heartbeat. I’d want to support the community, but I also think it’s a huge untapped market. Look at the flash content out there on the web! So much could easily become apps.

Flash Devs need to stop giving everything away in the hope of attracting consulting business! Build things people will pay for, and sell them! You guys are your own worst enemy! You’re not helping the community!

So Adobe, if you’re reading this, I know hardware isn’t your thing, but hey, consumer electronics wasn’t Apple’s when they launched the iPod (hardware still was, I know, it’s an imperfect comparison), and they’ve pretty much crushed that market now. You need to give up on the iPhone, yeah I know it’s the pits, but rather than waste time suing, being snarky on stage at MAX, and building hacky work arounds in Flash Pro, move on. You’re bigger than this “Let me in! Let me in!” nonsense. I want Adobe to shine, and rock the house! I want Adobe to do what it does best! Innovate! Build tools that let developers do mind blowing things! Now… Provide hardware for those mind blowing things to live on!

Ok that’s it! What do you think?

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.

1. 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.
2. 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!
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

I learned on my flight out, that Frontier won’t be servicing SJC after mid-May, which means for the most part, my reasons to fly Frontier at all are drastically diminished. I’ll probably start flying Southwest to test the waters of that airline. Since I never watch the free DirectTV that I get with Ascent level status, I won’t miss that. Everything else I enjoy about my Ascent level status, I can pay for with Southwest.

Sorry frontier, poor service of late, terrible website, and now leaving SJC…

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!

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.

I was my own boss several times as an Indie contractor, and was a cube monkey several times. Each (except one) was a good experience, a ton of fun, and formed lasting personal and business friendships.

I bought my first house in Perris CA, and my second in Riverside CA. Both were awesome in their own ways, despite being an hour or more from where I worked.

Most importantly, I met my wife Nicole.

We met thru a mutual friend whom I used to work with years past, and she was currently working with (Props to Scott Dunn for the intr0)

We moved to Denver. We were supposed to move a few months after meeting. Before I proposed, even. She had an opportunity to come out to Denver, and I had no major ties to CA. That opportunity dried up, and re-emerged 6 months later, and here we are.

We bought a house in Highlands Ranch, before we realized what Highlands Ranch was. 2 years after that, we moved to downtown Denver.

I started a conference that was supposed to be a one off, just for kicks event. It’s grown to be 3 distinct events, a few one off events around the world here and there, and my full time job (more in 2009)

2009

I’ve gone full time, totally dependent on 360|Conferences for income, lost a business partner, brought Nicole into the business, learned how to use Quickbooks, stopped writing code, just to name the big ones.

Going full time with the conference business wasn’t part of the plan, not in 2009 anyway. I was at EffectiveUI as the Community Evangelist, sadly a position, not enough of the company was on board with. When i left, I decided, well if the conferences are going to support me ever, they might as well start now. Since taking the job at EUI, i had stopped writing code, well I wrote a little, building small apps for internal/sales use, but by and large, i had stopped being a full time developer.

So I jumped. Eyes wide open.

All in all it’s been what I expected, stressful, awesome, a struggle, the best decision (Next to marrying Nicole) I’ve ever made.

Tom leaving was a shock in many ways, though I suspected we wouldn’t stay partners thru 2010, I just wasn’t sure how it would come down.

Our approaches to business are too different. When we’re “on”, we’re “ON” a totally creative innovative powerhouse. When we’re “off”, we’re “OFF” sadly we were off more than on.

After dealing with the shock and other feelings associated with going from partnership to “just me” basically, i had to learn to use quickbooks. That ain’t fun. I’m fairly comfortable with book keeping but quickbooks is a kludge IMHO. But oh well it’s what we’ve got. I’ve paid a book keeper to clean the books up, then I’ll take 100% ownership of that.

What am I looking at for 2010?

360|iDev will over take 360|Flex as my biggest event. Short of Adobe being more supportive of it’s third party developer eco system that is. If they figure out how to make third party developers thrive on their platforms, 360|Flex will grow. 360|Flex will and does rock, but there’s a distinct lack of love for third party tools built on and around Flex. That will be HUGE.

Apple may not give them love, but they at least don’t hinder their third parties.

360|Mobile, which was the ill-fated InsideMobile will grow and become it’s own thing. I’ll keep it small, but the non apple mobile space is hot, and quite frankly exciting, I can’t wait to see what’s going on there.

360|Whisperings will reach critical mass. Of the small amount of content on the site right now, it all sells monthly. A few purchased only, but something. The day I write checks to the authors, will be a huge day for me!

I’ll have a reliable, livable income coming from conferences/events. The business will reach an as yet unattained level of stability.

I’ll spend more time with Nicole, we’ll do more fun things, travel more, and enjoy life and each other’s company even more than we already do.

I really want to see The Flex Show grow. jeff and I love doing the show, and I want to see more the Flex Community get involved.

i’d like to do some more Denver community stuff. Ignite Denver is going strong, and I hope 2010 sees it grow and become a staple of the community. I really want to see something eventwise around literacy. A Festival of Books, something.