Conferences, Conferences, Conferences. Which Ones to Choose?

Dec 27, 2006

by Dee Sadler

There are many conferences to choose from in the first part of 2007. Below is a small list of those that are of interest to both designers and developers, from beginners in the ColdFusion and web world to the more advanced. All have their strong points, great content and fantastic speakers; which will you choose?

MacWorld

The first is MacWorld (http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/) on January 8 - 12, which is five conferences in one – a Power Tools Conference, MacIT Conference, Users Conference, Hands-on-MacLabs and a Market Symposium – all under one roof at the Mascone Center in San Francisco. FlashForward is also at MacWorld this year, thanks to Lynda.com. It is part of their Power Tools conference (which is geared towards the power users), and in my opinion, the addition of Flashforward alone makes MacWorld worth the travel to San Francisco. For those who have never been to one, FlashForward is what it sounds like – a Flash-centric conference. It was held in Austin this year, but at MacWorld, it will be only a fraction of its normal size.

What's exciting about the addition of FlashForward is that besides the in-depth workshops on AppleScripting, Final Cut Pro, and Dreamweaver, there will also be sessions on Actionscript, Flash, Flash Lite and Flex – a potpourri for the Adobe designer/developer. Many of these sessions encompass two full days of the conference, so you will have to pick and choose what best fits your needs. As an Adobe User Group manager and Certified Instructor, these sessions look very comprehensive. Since many developers and designers have the new Intel Macs, this is a great conference to start the new year with.

Frameworks Conference

Next up is the Frameworks conference (http://www.frameworksconference.com), put on by TeraTech in Washington DC on February 1st-2nd. This year the sessions include frameworks such as Mach-ii, Model Glue, Ruby on Rails, ColdSpring and Struts, and other methodologies such as XP and test-driven development. This conference has all the big names such as Hal Helms, Joe Rinehart, Ray Camden and the like.

The Frameworks sessions range from Beginner to Advanced and they also have an Other section. Now, I didn't know about this last year, but I think having sessions geared toward each type of user is a great idea. The sessions include topics like When and Why to use a Framework by Simon Horwith. Yes, it's true that Simon is speaking at a Frameworks conference. (That alone should be a reason to show up. Maybe there will be another death match between him and Hal Helms debating the need for Frameworks, like at CFUnited 2006.) There is a session on AJAX, a testing roundtable, Ruby on Rails and my personal favorite, Design for Developers (by yours truly and Dave Powell).

While I can't expound personally on the other sessions, Dave and I will be in the Beginners section talking about the design fundamentals like web graphics, color choices and CSS basics, and then again in the Others section taking these concepts further by showing how to style a Model-Glue application. We have a unique two-part topic for developers from two designers who are also developers. We came up with this topic because designers (depending on their skills, workflows and workplace) don't always know how to cut up their designs for developers and because designs often need to be tweaked once a designer feels they are finished.

AJAXWorld

Up next is AJAXWorld (http://www.ajaxworld.com/), a three-day event on March 19-21. Why would I bother with that? It is an upcoming technology, and one that Adobe is co-opting with their Spry framework. AJAXWorld has Web 2.0 sessions and a session on integrating with Flash. This conference may not be for everyone, but it's worth looking at if you live in or around New York.

cf.Objective()

cf.Objective() (http://www.cfobjective.com) has been moved to a later date this year, but is back in Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 3-6, and if you noticed, another day was added. cf.Objective() is the perfect conference to hone your skills. It is for the... non-beginner, shall we say. There has been a huge debate on what makes an advanced ColdFusion developer, so if you are somewhere between having the basics down, and having a book published on your favorite ColdFusion topic, then this is a great conference to attend. Ben Forta, Sean Corfield, Charlie Arehart and the usual group are speaking this year (the Dinowitzes will be missing this conference due to an upcoming birth). The topics are geared for the more advanced user, who will really get a lot out of the conference. As a Mac power user, and an expert on several Adobe products, I really appreciate events geared to the power user. On the website, they claim it's the world's only Enterprise Engineering Conference for ColdFusion MX Programmers.

Doug Boude, who was at last year's conference, felt that kudos should go to Jared for putting on such a great cf.Objective() conference last year. Doug thought that Michael Dinowitz's session on Asynchronous gateways was especially useful. As a matter of fact, it inspired him to experiment, and then write an article for the first issue of the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update about the results of his experimentation.

CFUNITED

Finally, CFUNITED (http://www.cfunited.com) rounds off the first half of 2007. Like the Frameworks conference, it is also put on by TeraTech in Washington, DC. Actually, both conferences are in Bethesda. CFUNITED is a four-day conference with something for everyone. Last year was my first time, and I was very impressed with the sessions, tracks, and speakers. As the Creative Director of the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update, I was there to help out at the booth, but I went to many of the sessions as well. Joey Coleman's IPO was a surprise and a much needed session for most, including myself. We all need personal branding. There were sessions on CSS and lots of things that as a designer, I really needed. I didn't expect to learn as much as I did. I was there with friends who are ColdFusion developers, and there were sessions we all attended, as well as topics that were geared for all levels of developers. I went to several sessions by Charlie Arehart. I knew Charlie from the User Group managers' list (he's an Adobe Community Expert), but had never heard him speak. I was blown away with the knowledge and information I learned in such a short time.

This year there is again an Adobe User Group Managers event the day before, as well as actual full-day classes. They have Saturday as either part of the regular package, or, if you live in the DC area, that could be your only day. We all used Saturday to catch sessions we had missed during the week. If last year was any indication as to what they are cooking up this year, then it'll be a great conference with something for everyone. Bring your designers along as well so they will learn about what you do, and maybe everyone will communicate better as a result.

A Small Oversight

As I was looking at the other conferences around, I noticed a slight error at http://www.cfconf.com/, a site that shows upcoming ColdFusion-related conferences. They mention that Macromedia is hosting.... I'd say that someone hasn't got the memo that Adobe bought Macromedia, or maybe it's just wishful thinking. They do, however, mention Frameworks and CFUNITED, but fail to mention cf.Objective(), which is a great conference.

Other Conferences of Note

Web Directions North (http://north.webdirections.org/) is February 6-19 in Vancouver. Dan Cederhorn of (http://www.simplebits.com) thinks this is one of the best web conferences around. They have some of my favorite CSS speakers, so if you can make it to Canada, it should be really worthwhile. May 8th-11th brings in the JavaOne conference (http://java.sun.com/javaone/sf/index.jsp), at the Mascone Center in San Francisco. Then there is @Media (http://www.vivabit.com/atmedia2007/), again in San Francisco (I might as well move there), again in May on the 24th and 25th. The lineup of speakers is also amazing if you follow the CSS world like I do. The Web 2.0 Conference (http://www.web2con.com/) will be held in San Francisco in November on the 7th-9th. It has a huge list of sponsors and should be well worth attending.

For graphic artists and game designers, there is a tremendously long list of conferences at http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/conferences.html. I did a search on OOP conferences and found http://www.liacs.nl/~marcello/FMOODS/index.htm, but it seems incredibly complicated to me, so look at your own risk. I searched for Seybold this year and found nothing on it. Seybold was for Ad agencies and graphic artists in the print world. I only do one thing these days that is print and the rest web, but I know print isn't dying out altogether; maybe they don't have that conference any more.

The year is really shaping up as far as learning and conferences go. Of course, there are always Adobe's seminars, and don't forget to visit your local Adobe User Group for more information on local events.

Dee Sadler is an Adobe Certified Instructor in Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash and Dreamweaver, and hopes to add Acrobat to the lineup as soon at the newest test comes out. She is also the Adobe User Group Manager of two groups in Kansas City (http://www.kcwebcore.org and http://www.kcdesigncore.org), as well as the Vice President of the ColdFusion and Flex group, KCDevCore at http://www.kcdevcore.org. Fusion Authority readers will recognize her hand as the Creative Director of Fusion Authority Quarterly Update, where she is responsible for the look and feel of the ColdFusion publication that won a CFeMmy for Best ColdFusion Publication of the year.