CFUNITED Day 0: Tuesday, June 28th

 
Jul 01, 2005

by Judith Dinowitz

I came in to CFUNITED on Tuesday afternoon, and caught some of the MMUG Manager Day, which is always a treat. I enjoy the opportunity to hear what some of the other user group managers are doing, which gives me ideas on ways in which I can improve my own group. This year was no exception. I especially enjoyed Joshua Adams' talk on using online "agendas" to guide meetings, the presentation on getting speakers (an important part of a MMUG manager's job), and Mark (The "Stress Doc") Gorkin's very interactive presentation on successful public speaking. Though I was half asleep from the ride down (seven hours starting out at 7 o'clock in the morning, thanks to Jeffry Houser, MMUG Manager for the Connecticut ColdFusion User Group), I still enjoyed the MMUG Manager's Day and would highly recommend it to any user group manager.

By 7:00, we were setting up, preparing our booth for the exhibit hall. This year, we were working with AboutWeb and Macromedia to run the Community Center -- not in a separate room this time, but as part of the exhibit area. AboutWeb gathered piles of amazing giveaways, and had a novel approach to prizes. They set up a big spinning prize wheel (known as the "Wheel of Fusion") by their booth. There were two ways to win a spin on the wheel. One was to play "Shoot the Guru" and shoot down the pictures of five ColdFusion gurus on the table. (Only one attempt allowed per day.) Those who failed at the guru shootup could still try for a spin by answering one of the ColdFusion challenge questions posted throughout the day. Those who answered correctly got entered into a raffle for a wheel spin. The questions ranged from the easy ones, like "When was ColdFusion invented?" to some tricky code puzzlers.


Anne Redding from AboutWeb shows off the "Wheel of Fusion" in the Community Center.

House of Fusion's contribution to the Community Center was an Xbox complete with three controllers, dance pads, and three games, courtesy of EB Games (http://www.ebgames.com), a national retailer with over 4,000 stores. Between the Xbox competitions and our CF_Library, with technical books donated by several publishers (Fog Creek, Macromedia Press, Microsoft Press, O'Reilly Books, Peachpit Press, Pragmatic Programmers and Proton Arts), the Community Center really added an extra dimension of relaxation and fun to the conference.


A heated Dance competition at the CFUNITED Community Center! The Xbox was sponsored by national retailer EB Games (http://www.ebgames.com).

There is much more to say about CFUNITED ... From Tuesday through Friday, when we left, we had a great time. Stay tuned for the next part of my report, which will focus on the conference itself!

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