360Flex Session Highlight – Doug McCune ‘Cool Shit’

March 31, 2009 By

Doug is by far one of the most entertaining people to watch present. Whether it’s the colorful language or the harassing of ASL Interpretters, he’s just plain entertaining. Maybe it’s the hair.360|Flex San Jose didn’t get any McCune love, because he was off pirating the 7 seas, and generally causing mayham for the British, attacking their tea transports. (I don’t think I could possibly have mixed more images)

For 360|Flex Indy he’s decided to share what motivates him and gets his creative juices flowing (yeah that metaphor is disturbing in any context, but especially this one). If you’ve ever felt like you were “just doing a job” this might be a good session to sit in on. Of course you could also sit in on it, if you want to get your weekly dose of swear words.

Doug’s description is:

By the end of 2008 I had burned out. Flex development had become a job – a real job, a normal job -  and I wasn’t experimenting and playing with the technology like I used to. So I decided to go on a quest of rediscovery. I was determined to find the magic again, that spark of “holy shit, that’s fucking amazing!” that comes when you’re so inspired by someone’s work that you stay up until 4 in the morning trying to create something as cool.

This session will include examples of Flex and Flash projects and experiments that have re-inspired me. I’ll talk about why I fell in dorky love with each example, and then dive into what that inspiration led me to create. Inspiration is a cycle, and I hope that by sharing my own inspiration and my own creations I can provoke others to do the same. We’re all in this together, and there’s so much cool shit to explore.

If you want to be inspired by the McCune magic, register now before it’s too late!

Filed Under: 360flex, Sessions Tagged With:

Indy Will Be the Only “Stand Alone” 360|Flex Show in 2009

March 30, 2009 By

Let me start of by saying, this is NOT a sad news post!

360|Flex Indy is our best selling show to date!  I think that people are seeing the value in this show during these tough economic times.  We’re giving you five amazing tracks, plus some killer hands on stuff all for roughly $500.  That’s the price other shows charge just for their 1 day pre-conference training. Our pre-conference training is free with admission, in case you weren’t aware.

We tend to do 360|Flex shows 6 months apart.  We wanted to do Indy in 2009 to hang with our good friends at Simplified Logic, and so we chose May to insure that Indy had time to thaw.  If you do a wee bit of calculating, you’ll see that puts us in the November timeframe.  Not a good month with people already taking time off for Thanksgiving, so let’s roll back one month to October.  Now, isn’t there something else going down in October.  Oh yeah, that Adobe MAX thing.  Now, we realize that we don’t share customers 100%, but let’s face it.  Trying to hold a stand alone 360|Flex in the same month as MAX on the same side of the country is probably not too smart.  Economic times are tough, so we wouldn’t want to put people out by forcing them to travel twice for the two shows or making people make a tough choice on where to be.  We’re looking at some alternative formats for the West Coast edition, but one thing is for certain.  There will NOT be a standalone 360|Flex on the west coast in 2009.  (Let the rumor mill start churning on what the “alternative format” will be!)  Come 2010, we’ll get back on track and start off with a west coast show and resume a schedule more conducive to 2 shows a year.

What about September you ask, well, that poses it’s own problem.  See, 360Conferences had a baby this year.  She cost us a little money, but she’s so cute!  LOL  360|iDev, our iPhone/iPod developer conference, was launched in early March.  It looks like we have our second hit show on our hands.  The problem though is that 6 months after March is September.  Therefore, we’ll be busy that month doing that show.  As much as I’d like to think John and I can handle 2  full length shows in the same month, we’d be lying to ourselves if we tried.  Plus, both shows would suck and everyone would hate us.  We don’t want to be hated. :) We want people to like us!

August would be only 3 months after Indy and December would be no good for a lot of folks again cuz of holidays, you know, it’s Festivus time.  We’ve never had to work with two different shows before and as you can see, it requires a bit of planning.   360Conferences may be known for great shows, but planning is something that we still struggle with obviously!  :)

Indy is our most robust 360|Flex show to date.  It’s almost 2 shows worth in one. We have other items in the works to provide even more value for your money.

Tickets are moving fast.  We have roughly 30 tickets left at the $480 price level.  They’ll soon be $550.  You better register now to get the best price you can get!  See you in Indy!

Filed Under: 360flex, Adobe MAX, Announcements Tagged With: , ,

Why attend 360|Flex?

March 25, 2009 By

Most people don’t have to ask that anymore, which is awesome! But for every show there’s plenty of new blood in the mix, which is better. If we have to expain the benefits of 360|Flex before every event, more the better!

That question of why to attend 360|Flex, let alone any other event, right now is a big one. Money is tight, people are losing their jobs and barely hanging on to the one’s they’ve got. We understand that.

360|Flex is cheap, there’s no two ways about it. We’ve been cheap from the beginning, because we value money. Tom and I are developers, Tom’s doing consulting now, I and I did it for a long time, we both understand that paying $1200 for a conference, heck, even $600-$800 is a big investment. There’s nothing wrong with investing that much money into your skillset, your professional network etc. But the people you’re giving that much money to, should deliver. We don’t think most events have done that.

So why should you spend $480 to attend 360|Flex Indianapolis?

  • Adrian Pomillo talking about the Flex Ajax Bridge and Legacy Applications
  • Bryce Barrand talking about The art of project management in large-scale Flex projects
  • Jacob Wright talking about Cloud computing with Flex
  • Ben Stucki talking about his Flex based startup “AudioSpike Makes Some Noise”
  • Joe Olsen talking about Creativity is the fuel, process is the engine: Building a scalable interactive production environment.

and 40+ more sessions, on everything from the basics of Flex, to how to be a better consultant.

If you’re looking to make yourself more valuable to your employer, more capable of demanding a higher bill rate, or just beef your skills up to the next level, there really is no better conference to attend. The ROI you’ll get from 3 days (4 if you come to the pre-conference training, free of course for attendees) at 360|Flex is beyond measure. Just ask any past attendee. We repeatedly hear that 360|Flex has paid for itself after the first day, we invite everyone who is on the fence, or just hasn’t committed to jump on board. Join us in Indianapolis for what will be the best Flex conference you’ll attend (that is until you attend another 360|Flex LOL)

Filed Under: 360flex, why Tagged With:

Why Sponsor 360Flex?

March 24, 2009 By

It occured to me that it might not be obvious why a company would want to sponsor 360|Flex. Well of course it’s obvious to me.

I see it like this, you can sponsor MAX for what? $20k? $30k for a tiny uniform booth in a huge sea of other people who spent the same amount. You could sponsor CF.Objective, and meet ColdFusion developers and dabblers in RIA technology. Same story for CFunited, you could meet a ton of people that don’t fit what you’re looking for.

I won’t even assume a sponsor is hiring, in this economy there’s not much hiring going on. There’s tons of other reasons to be at 360|Flex.

  1. You will be hiring. Sooner or later, so why not meet the best and brightest developers in the RIA space?
  2. You’ll need a consultant at some point. There’s plenty at 360|Flex
  3. You’re looking for people to beta test your new product or service, who better than the biggest names in the Flex community?
  4. You’re looking to establish your company’s name in the community. You won’t find a more vocal and chatty group of Flex developers
  5. You want to make sure that every person who shakes your hand or takes your flier, is a Flex developer. There won’t be Illustrator users, Robo help creators, or anyone else at 360|Flex.
  6. You want to be a part of something huge! That’s about more than taking your money at the door.

We’ve made 360|Flex incredibly sponsor friendly this year, sponsors won’t get a single thing they don’t want, that means they only pay for things they actually find benefit in. Don’t need a booth, don’t get one.

If anyone is interested in what sponsoring 360|Flex is all about, feel free to ask us, we’ll put you in touch with past sponsors.

Filed Under: 360flex, Business, Sponsors Tagged With:

360Flex – Business Track bring the awesome!

March 23, 2009 By

If you were with us in San Jose you’ll know we started something new. We added a partial track called “The Business of Flex”. It was pretty popular, even for just a filler track. Well that little track has grown up, in a big way!

Not only is it a more dedicated track with some awesome speakers like Chuckstar, Anthony Franco, Bryce Barrand, and many more, but it also spawned an event within an event!

We’ve been talking with some of the biggest names in the Flex development and services space and are really happy to announce the 360|Flex Summit for Business Leaders!

I’ll come back to the summit, but first back to the 360|Flex Business Track. It’s a full two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) with some awesome topics! The sessions are the same length. It’s just an additional track. We felt the need for this track was worth adding speakers and an additional room to the event (oh and did we mention the price didn’t change because of this? More bang, same buck). With the economy the way it is, if developers and dev shops can not only increase their knowledge but also pick up some new business knowledge, all the better. We want our attendees to leave with more than they came in with.

Okay back to the summit! This one really excites me. The business track is one thing, but what about those decision makers and executives looking at RIA? The 360|Flex Summit for business leaders is the event. It’s a 1 day event (The Monday of the conference) and will have 2 break out rooms, with topics relevant to RIA and Flex in the enterprise, in the business world, the ROI, etc. EffectiveUI, Universal Mind, Digital Primates and Simplified Logic are currently signed on to present.

The goal of the summit is to help these executives and decision maker types, not just see the benefits of RIA, but of Flex specifically. To see first hand from other companies that have successfully deployed a Flex RIA and benefited from it, and to hear from industry leaders on how best to approach the problem. It’s our hope that this event gives these folks a better insight into what they can expect when undertaking an RIA project at their companies.

You can check the business track schedule for 360|Flex Indy on the newly updated schedule. If you like what you see, register for the event. Tickets sales are better than any other show, so get ‘em while you can.

In addition, the business leader summit has it’s own site, check it out, spread the word!

Filed Under: 360flex, Business Tagged With:
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