If you missed the conference in Des Moines on Friday, you really should kick yourself. It was a great time and there were some great presentations. I want to thank all of the speakers for coming, most of whom came on their own dime. Some reflections about the conference..
1) If there is a chance to win something (ie. Xbox) and you do not know what time the drawing is to be held, don't leave the conference. A very unfortunate attendee was not present when his name was called and an Xbox was consequentially given away to another attendee. Upon his return, he seemed pretty pissed he missed it and was giving me shit about it. I told him next time he should stick around, which didn't seem to help his demeanor. Oh well, he's probably sitting at home not playing Xbox thinking the same thing.
2) Note to self: Geeks like caffeine more than air. If there is one glaring mistake we made this year it was not having enough caffeine. Next year we'll be swimming in it, I guarantee you. Additionally, next year we need to have bigger rooms, more heat, snacks, pay for speakers, more sessions, additional days, more attendees, and a totally different hotel. No offense to the staff, but the hotel blew..bigtime. My bed was like layered foam from the local furniture store. You know, the kind they use to wrap furniture. I crashed on the bed about 3:15AM for my two hour nap before the conference and when I hot the bed I think I cracked a rib. Which brings me to my last point on this topic, next year we start at 9:00AM.
Lastly, I want to thank Kent, both Erics, Diane, and the other members of the Heartland Developers Network for all the hard work in making the conference a success. Additionally, I want to thank all the other UG leaders for the “User Group Leader of the Year” award. I am not good at taking public recognition, but please know I appreciate it immensely.
Looking forward to 2005, I am very excited to see how next year's conference shapes up. Right now, we are shooting for 300, so we'll see what happens.
Okay, okay, I am through listening to the constant badgering from my colleagues and friends to start blogging. As you can see from the previous post, I gave it the old college try and failed miserably. I guess you could attribute it to me working 60-70 hours a week between my full time job and all the side business. You could also probably attribute it to running the
Omaha.NET UG, serving as UG liaison to the North Central region for
INETA,or leading the efforts for the
Heartland Developers Network. Whew... Anyway, I decided to stop bitching and blog. Hopefully things go better this time around.