Well, yet another successful devLink Technical Conference in the books. This year was my 3rd year volunteering, but the first year I really stepped up to the plate in helping get communications ready and organizing things. In spite of that, I heard many people say it was the best devLink ever, I certainly have to agree.
I was thinking about the factors that make devLink such a great conference, as I saw a good number of tweets asking if devLink was better than this or that conference, and I realized that part of what makes it so great is that it is truly a community conference, supported by some great corporate sponsors.
The speakers/presenters tend to run the gamut from big name keynote presenters (like Tim Huckaby and Ted Neward) to well known community speakers to average Joes who really want to share something cool they’ve found. This large range of presenters seems to help promote networking and building relationships. I’ve been to a few Microsoft run events (Mix, PDC, etc.) and while they are big dollar and have fancy giveaways and big name presenters, the networking that happens at community-driven events like devLink can’t be touched.
The planning for next year’s devLink has already started (as of Saturday night at dinner) and we’ll be striving to make it even better than this years. Huge thanks to John Kellar, Leanna and John Baker, Rachel Twyford, Randy Walker, Dan Weese, Bryan Meyer, Tommy Norman, Cicelie (sp?) Neel and the Kellar family for all the help with making the conference go off without a hitch. What a great way to spend a weekend! Huge thanks also to all of the speakers who set the bar even higher this year.
A couple of take-aways for me:
- It’s time to get more involved with the community as a whole and to start presenting. I’m going to start working on some talks and hope to be able to present them the the Nashville .NET UG and then move on to CodeStock and devLink next year. Additionally, I’m going to really start working on blogging more about technical things, and trying to collaborate on projects. Like a new devLink website (yeah, we know it’s ugly…)
- Windows Phone 7: Do. Want. NOW! The development stuff I saw just got me even more excited about it, and I didn’t think that was possible.
- I’m recognizing that I’ve fallen way behind in my database (SQL) skills over the last few years due to focusing so much on programmatic code. Given my redirection at work to more of an infrastructure/DBA role, it’s time focus on those again.
- Jeremiah Peschka (@peschkaj on Twitter) and Robert Cain (@arcanecode) are two of the coolest guys in the SQL Server World. Kevin Kline (@kekline) and Louis Davidson (@drsql) were already there.
- It was interesting to see how “regional” devLink has become as compared to years past. There were many attendees from outside of Tennessee, and while that’s a great thing for meeting people, I’m a little disappointed that Nashville didn’t make a better showing. Still, great to meet and eat with Nashville (ok, and Chattanooga now) folks at dinner on Thursday night. You guys were geniuses and I felt honored to be able to eavesdrop on, and participate in your conversations!
Having attended every devLink ever (including the gray shirt year), it keeps growing and improving. While a lot of the credit for that goes to John and Leanna, and the board, a lot of it goes to the community for stepping up their game and making it even better.
IT Infrastructure companies, we’re putting you on notice now: We’re planning on having an infrastructure track next year at devLink. It would greatly benefit you as a company to sponsor the conference and get prime placement. VMWare, Sun/Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, NetApp, Cisco, etc. I’m looking at all of you. There’s a NEED for the infrastructure community to come together just like the developer community has. You can help drive it, and as you do, I guarantee you’ll see a return on your time and monetary investment. Hope on board, it’s gonna be a fun ride.
So, another year is done, and hopefully I’ll be able to help even more with planning and running devLink 2011. With John Kellar having moved to Chattanooga, I have a feeling Leanna will need the help up here. Here I am! Thanks to all the devLink 2010 attendees for making it a great experience! See you all next year!