360|Flex San Jose

17th February 2010

I was already considering making the trip to San Jose to attend the 360|Flex conference this March when the organisers asked me if I’d present a session. It took me all of one millisecond to decide. Of course I’d love to. So I’ll be in San Jose next month hosting a session on “Designer last development architecture” – more on what that means in another post soon.

360|Flex has interested me for some time. It’s the most technical, developer oriented of the many Flash and Flex conferences around, and as a developer myself that obviously interests me. The level of technical knowledge amongst the speakers is immense. (That I’ve been invited to join them makes me feel very special).

But 360|Flex is about more than just technical presentations. John and Tom try very hard to make this a conference where all attendees feel part of a community. My first experience of this was in my invitation to speak, where they made it absolutely clear that they didn’t want me if I wasn’t going to hang around at the conference attending other sessions and chatting to the attendees – all the attendees, even the one’s I don’t know (yet). I like that. I don’t speak at conferences because I like the sound of my own voice, I speak at conferences because I like to exchange ideas with other developers, and that means both talking and listening. It means developing those ideas through discussion (and yes, sometimes those discussions involve beer, but that really isn’t the point).

Conferences aren’t about the sessions, they’re about the people. The sessions form a backbone to an event where developers meet and get to know each other, where we exchange ideas, inspire each other and forge a community. I would urge every developer to attend at least one conference a year. If 360|Flex sounds like your kind of conference, come join us.

Tags: 360Flex, Presentations