Oh yeah, things I liked.
- USB key – much better idea for handing out presentations and sponsor pamphlets than anything else I’ve seen. I’d love to see this managed via a plug-in/pull-out uber-lightweight terminal, so that Tom and John don’t have to spend all their bar time, slowly updating USB keys
- Michael Labriola – Dense and Hot – An Introduction to Your Application’s Start Up – this was the sort of detailed examination I was expecting from 360Flex. I would have liked it to have gotten even denser 🙂
- Dan Thomas – Developer Best Practices – I liked how this effectively turned into a conversation with all the attendees in the room. I tend to see sessions less as lectures and more as severely one sided conversations, so it was good to be able to converse back and forth with various people their points of view.
- Finally, Milan, whilst not being to my taste (I care not for fashion), is remarkably centrally located for pretty much all of Europe – less than 3 hours to most of Europe. While I’d prefer the Eurostar, I don’t think it quite stretches out to Romania.
Whew! Not all was lost. I was wondering if you noticed the USB Key upgrade. Though, I agree, we do need a do-it-yourself-update terminal. It’s definitely on our list.
I think next time with no OnAir Tour conflict, a bigger pushback from us to speakers for deeper topics and a venue closer to the European Flex hotspots (Benelux, UK), things will pick up to “expected” 360|Flex levels.
Funny lil tidbit though, you only experienced 360|Flex ’07 in San Jose. A lot of our speakers skipped Seattle because they felt that San Jose 07 was “too light” on tech topics, “too markety” of an event and all around not that good. By default, our constant desire for improvements seem to smooth out these kinda “less desirables” by Seattle and we were rolling full steam by Atlanta.
We’ll definitely be working hard behind the scenes to bridge the gap between the 2 Euro shows. The good thing is that the community will have one more year to grow and become more tech savvy with Flex. This will benefit our attendees as there will be more hard core Flex geeks in the speaker pool.
I know you won’t be first in line to buy, but I’m hoping 360|Flex Euro ’09 will be good enough to entice you back.
Thanks again for the reviews.