The last day, and the day after 360|Flex are bittersweet. Everyone is signing the welcome banner on wednesday, stopping by to say goodbye as they leave to catch flights, congratulating us on making a profit (w00t!!), etc. It’s great to be able to say goodbye to everyone. The day after is lots of packing up, seeing the stragglers around the lobby, driving home.

It also means it’s gonna be a year until we do it again. It was sad when it was only 6 months, now it’s a year and so… well THANK YOU FLEX COMMUNITY.

The awesome vibe and spirit of 360|Flex 2011 will keep us energized for the rest of the year.

I wanted to take a minute to post this and make sure there was no doubt in anyone’s mind why we do this. If you left Denver last week, ready to do cool shit, conquer the world, and in general be awesome, then we did our job, and so did the speakers and sponsors.

If you didn’t let me know why! We’ll do better!

I know for some it’s hard to think of a conference as a “mom and pop operation” they’re usually huge and faceless, and it’s easy to think of them in terms of a big business. Funny story, I was sitting at the reg table (my spot is the one by the printer, my stickered out laptop and many tablets are always there. If I’m not walking around helping out, I’m there reading tweets to make sure the temp in Salon A is ok, or the internet in Salon C works, etc) and NJ from Adobe was talking to an attendee. The funny part of this is that I’ve met NJ exactly twice. Once a long long time ago at MAX when he was demo’ing a Surface Table built with AS, and then again in Denver last week, he didn’t remember the first time, and I probably didn’t even really introduce myself. I’ve met the Attendee at least 2x also, last time in DC for 360|Flex East and again last week in Denver. The attendee was complaining to NJ “Who ever runs this conference should….” I wasn’t really paying attention to their conversation, but that got my attention so I looked up. NJ looked to me, then the attendee, then to me, then back and pointed at me and said “That guy. He runs it”

The point of that story, is that there is no “who ever” it’s John and Nicole Wilker. One of us is always at the front desk. We welcome every attendee Sunday and Monday, and we say goodbye all day Wednesday. I give a short morning keynote about the conference and life in general. There’s not hired hands doing the grunt work, there’s no group “back home at

the office”. There’s no private office where the staff hides out. Our office last week was a dining room full of boxes where we stored things.

360|Flex is awesome because of the community. Not me, not Tom when he was on board, not Nicole. We’re stewards, nothing more. This year’s 360|Flex rekindled why I started doing these events. It made me remember that the community is so incredible and sharing, and no matter how much they make as an indie dev or corporate dev, they need and want a place to come together, that they can afford to get to. To sit with a beer and plate of snacks and talk about code, how excited they are for Spoon, which is better; robotlegs or swiz. Take a short field trip to Denver one day, etc.

Tom and I started 360|Flex because it was the event we wanted to attend, I continue it because it’s the event folks like, and I love being able to see them come in and leave with all sorts of new knowledge and skills. Nicole and I never set out to be conference organizers, but we love providing a place for the community to show up in person, and grow and get stronger.

So long blog post short… Thank you to every single attendee, speaker, and sponsor who helped make 360|Flex 2011 so awesome. You placed your trust in us to deliver a good event, and I hope we lived up to that trust and will see you next year! (Or at MAX, keep an eye out for 360|MAX)

If you missed 360|Flex 2011, try not to next year :) But don’t worry you can watch the session recordings.

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If you’ve been following along, we’ve been doing Speaker Chats the last few weeks, and most (sorry, some you had to be there for) were recorded. For posterity, here’s links to all the recorded chats. Enjoy!

Brent Arnold

James Ward & Michael Labriola

Garth Braithwaite

RJ Owen

Jeffry Houser (No recording)

It’s not too late to register for 360|Flex 2011. Speaker Michael Labriola said it best. Go register!

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You’ve got until Thursday at 11am Mountain time, to work on some really hard questions to throw at him. Maybe Flex 4 under the covers stuff, or unit testing, or Flex SDK branching…. bring your hardest/best questions :)

When: March 24th, 11am mountain.

Where: Adobe Connect

See you there!

Remember, Michael and over 40 other Flex/AIR rock stars will be in Denver in just a few weeks for 360|Flex 2011. Airfare isn’t bad still, and there’s a few seats left! Don’t miss out! Register now!

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If Cigars are your thing and you’re sticking around on Wednesday night (which you should just because it’s a great time to hang out with folks) then we’ve got a treat for you. Speaker and Adobe evangelist Kevin Hoyt is having a Cigar night on Wednesday the 13th.

You can RSVP here. Space is limited so don’t dilly dally!

see you in Denver!! register now!!

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Garth is part of the RIAradio team, the awesome designer of the 360|F

When: Thursday the 10th, 11:00am

Where: Adobe Connect

In case you missed RJ Owen’s Speaker Chat, you can watch the recording here. Some good stuff about Flex and HTML5

Register now, don’t miss this kind of awesome content in person!

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You shouldn’t come to 360|Flex if…

• You’re “so busy” you don’t need to learn anything new or meet anyone new.
• You don’t want to establish and build a network of awesome colleagues that could land you your next gig
• You’re such an expert with Flex, AIR, AIR for Android, and RIA in general that surely there’s nothing anyone else can teach you.
• you’re so awesome at Rock Band, playing has just gotten old to you. :)
• You have no interest in the latest and greatest announcement from Adobe, RIM, Intel, and more
• You’d rather spend 4 days at home not enjoying the great Denver weather and being surrounded by crazy smart people
• You’d rather spend more money on another event with fewer sessions, fewer speakers and far less ‘awesome’

Can you think of any i missed?

Register now! Don’t be one of those people!

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Save the date!

March 3rd, 11am MTN time. RIGHT HERE

Don’t miss out on the best Flex/AIR developer event around. Often immitated, NEVER duplicated :) See you in Denver!

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This tweet really hits home how we feel about this year’s schedule.

We sent the speakers the schedule last night for a sneak peak before this post went live.

This tweet came after that email went out, and MADE my night!

We’ve started work on the AIR app and the mobile apps, so keep an eye out for those announcements, but for now, go enjoy the PDF!

This will be an awesome 360|Flex, don’t miss out on the best Flex/AIR event of the year! Register now!

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The First session, Tuesday at 10:50a ‘The Invaluable Freelance Flasher’ will cover what you need to know as a freelance developer.  The second session, Wednesday at 1:30p ‘How to Scale Your Freelance Biz and Maximize Your Profit.’ will supercharge your freelancing!

Q:How long have you been working with Flex?

A: Since about the time Flex 3 came out. I was starting my affair with Rails and picked up Peter Armstrong’s “Flexible Rails” book figuring I could combine my new passion with my longtime Flash platform love. Sadly, I’ve still not been able to use both on the same project.

Yeah we still see a lot of Flex/CF and Flex/Java combos, not so much with rails… yet we hope.

Q: What do you like most about Flex?

A: Oh, I’d probably have to say data binding was a revelation coming from old school Flash development. For me, Flex sings when building data centric apps with lots of services, forms and visualizations. I still do a lot of pure AS3 apart from the Flex framework, so I’m constantly on that boundary trying to decide which way to go with my projects.

By far one of my favorite features (i think i’ve said this before, LOL) is databinding. So easy and so, ‘damn why hasn’t it always been this way?’

Q: What 1 session are you most excited about seeing at 360|Flex DC?

A: Gah, just 1?! This is 360Flex, are you kidding asking for just 1? I’m definitely looking forward to Antonio Holguin’s talks, especially the mobile UX session.

LOL Yeah it’s easy to say “All of them” much harder to pick a single one from such a great line up!

Q: What about 360|Flex DC are you most excited about?

A: The people. At past 360s I’ve talked to people writing Flex consoles for telco systems, deep sea mapping, HVAC GUIs, games, an app that tell you when to pee during a movie, and tons more. I guarantee attendees will have at least 1 eye-opening conversation during this conversation that make a significant, measurable impact on their career over the next 6 months.

Q: Do you prefer ninjas or robots?

A: Based on the movies I watched throughout the 80s, the hours I practiced catching arrows shot at my chest by my younger brother, the throwing stars, the sneaking through the woods on my tip toes…. I’m gonna have to say Ninjas.

Much like the spanish inquisition, no expects NINJAS!!! I hope the arrows were blunted :)

Q: What is one thing you’d like to see improved in the Flex Framework?

A: The file size. I’d like to only incur the weight for the bits I use.

That’d be nice. Oh wait, kinda like Reflex :) Check out Tyler Wright’s session

Q: Is there someone you’re hoping to see at 360|Flex DC?

A: Clinkinbeard. He never replies to any of my tweets; so what if we’re complete strangers. Hi Ben!

He’s shy.. If you threaten to fire him for not properly supporting his open source projects, he opens right up…

Q: Lastly, what would you tell someone who was on the fence or hadn’t heard (I know, they’re out there though) of 360|Flex to get them to come?

A: I know how hard it is to consider taking time away from project deadlines to travel and attend a conference. Despite what it feels like, you’ll survive and your projects can still get done. You can even scrum before morning sessions. And what the 360Flex experience will do for your career far outweighs the impact of a few days on your current workload.

That’s what we try to tell everyone :) 360|Flex is just a week away! Don’t miss out! You’re career will thank you! Register now!

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Whether working on Reflex (Wednesday at 2:50) or something else awesome, Jac and Tyler are always up to something cool!

Q: How long have you been working with Flex?

A: In Flex? since Flex 2 and ActionScript 3 first came out – 3, 4 years now? In Flash? Eight wonderful years! ;)

Nice. A Flash convert :)

Q: What do you like most about Flex?

A: I love the ease of Binding and the MXML workflow in all it’s state-filled, style-enhanced glory!

Yeah there’s so much that looks hard, but is easy and impressive about Flex. It’s great for building really kick ass things that normally might not be worth the effort!

Q: What 1 session are you most excited about seeing at 360|Flex DC?

A:

Q: What about 360|Flex DC are you most excited about?

A: The city is choice, the sessions are exciting, but I am most excited for the amazing concentration of Flex talent I can associate with at 360|Flex DC. There are some seriously talented devs presenting & attending and, as devs tend to be, they are surprisingly down-to-earth and happy to talk to anyone about cool coding and upcoming projects.

So true. If there’s someone who’s helped you out on Flexcoders, or elsewhere, they’re likely speaking at 360|Flex, and if not, will be in the audience!

Q: Do you prefer ninjas or robots?

A: Ha haaa … my preference on ninjas or robots will be revealed in the concluding session of 360|Flex DC: A Component Set Called Reflex. You don’t want to miss this presentation, or the results of the timeless question of ninjas vs robots.

NICE! Well played, and now I can’t wait (I was already excited about the session!!) to see the session!

Q: What is one thing you’d like to see improved in the Flex Framework?

A: Besides seeing it “become more like Reflex” :P (not really true), I’d like to see the Flex Framework continue to grow more compatible with Flash and AS3 libraries and workflows. Though not an insignificant task, unifying the Flex and Flash community will go a long way in strengthening the Flash Platform and its ecosystem. Which task becomes more and more important as other technologies try and defame our work.

Very very true! No small task, but one worth undertaking!

Q: Is there someone you’re hoping to see at 360|Flex DC?

A: Is there someone I’m not excited to see at 360|Flex DC is a more pertinent question. I’m sad my brother Jacob won’t be making this conference, and John Lindquist has been conferenced-out this year as well. But it will be great to connect again with the wise Ben Stucki, the seemingly ritalin-induced Jesse Warden, the not-a-bum Jesse Freeman, David Ortinau, Nate Beck, Bruno Fonzi, Paul Robertson just to name a few. Um, mostly John Wilker, that goes without saying of course…

It does go without saying but it’s nice to hear nonetheless!! And yeah the conference is pretty much a who’s who of the Flash Flex community.

Q: Lastly, what would you tell someone who was on the fence or hadn’t heard (I know, they’re out there though) of 360|Flex to get them to come?

A: 360|Flex is an investment with the highest return on personal growth in this industry. Between highly educational sessions and talented peers you’ll befriend your work will become more productive and your knowledge well-rounded as you explore for 3 days the areas of your work you didn’t know existed. Don’t miss this conference, don’t miss the experience, the fun, the learning and the growth. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention how much fun it is, 3 straight days of geeking out without deadlines or distractions.

Agreed! The return on Investment is huge, and we try to make sure that point get’s across! If you’re looking to get a new job, get a promotion, get new projects, or just get new knowledge, there’s no place else you’ll get it.  Don’t miss out on this much awesome! Go Register! Do it now!

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