An Interview with Brian Rinaldi of RIA Unleashed

While this was the first RIA Unleashed, this is the third event you've done. Why the name change?

Well, there was a technical reason for the change as well a philosophical one. The technical reason was that since the event was no longer part of the Flex Camp program (which is now Flash Camp), I couldn't honestly call it Flex Camp Boston anymore. However, philosophically, I was broadening the focus and the size of the event beyond just Flex and AIR to include tracks on ColdFusion, Flash Catalyst, user experience design (UXD), and more.

How many people attended the event?

We had over 350 people registered for the event, and had over 300 actual attendees. This was the biggest audience we've had, surpassing even our first year when we were one of the first Flex Camps. In fact, we sold out two weeks before the event and still had a waiting list even after expanding the registration. What surprised me most is that this year we had a lot of attendees traveling in from beyond our local area and New England; we had people from New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, Maryland, a return attendee from Seattle (aside from Ryan) and even from Canada.

What is the most challenging aspect of putting together a conference like this?

This was the fourth event I've put on like this; I won't say it's old hat yet, but it gets easier with practice. Nonetheless, this one exceeded my previous events in both size and scale. Planning these events tends to be crazy at the beginning as you set the date, get the speakers and sponsors, organize the venue, and so on. Then you spend months simply promoting the event, which can be incredibly stressful (but not as all-consuming of your time). Finally, the last couple of weeks are nuts trying to get everything set, including many late nights assembling the attendee folders and giveaways.

I am incredibly lucky, though, in that I have never had to struggle to get sponsors or speakers. My employer, Pongo Resume, committed the funds I needed to get started, and companies like Webapper, Universal Mind, and Flextras all committed from the get-go or very early in the process. Nearly every speaker I approached about coming committed, and many people approached me about speaking. I know that getting speakers and sponsors can often be a struggle for these types of events, but I am grateful to have never faced that issue.

How did you select the topics and speakers?

My philosophy for running these events is that if you get the best speakers there, the rest of it works itself out. For the most part, I invite the speakers that I would personally like to see speak and who I know are great presenters. I tried to cover all of the general track topics, but didn't ask speakers to commit to a specific session topic until a little later in the process (after I had all of the speakers lined up). If someone is a good presenter (and all of them were) I'll generally enjoy any topic they present.

What do you think was the coolest thing shown there?

Well, I know that Ryan Stewart releasing AIR 2.0 to attendees ahead of time got a ton of attention. However, the one thing about running these events is that you rarely get to see many (or any) sessions. It's kind of ironic since I started this event as a way to get a Flex and AIR-focused event that I could attend on the east coast!

What will be different about next year's RIA Unleashed?

I honestly haven't thought it through completely yet. Some people thought I should expand further, maybe into a second day, while others thought that would change the feel of the event. I am looking for feedback from people about that but I haven't fully decided yet. If I were to give a sense of where I am leaning right now, it would be towards improving some items that I would have done differently, but sticking with the one-day, three-track format. I'm thinking, why fix something that not only isn't broken but was in fact hugely successful?

When will the next RIAUnleashed be?

I am probably looking at early to mid November again since I always work around MAX to a degree. If you want to keep up with any announcements, simply follow @RIAUnleashed on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.