TechFest: achieving world domination! HoustonTechFest was a blast!
This post really should have came before my TulsaTechFest.com post chronologically, but I already had that one prepared, so I picked the lowest hanging fruit first.
I had the opportunity to speak at the first annual HoustonTechFest.com on August 25th, 2007. It was a very awesome event. Michael Steinberg and the team from the HoustonDNUG did a terrific job. I got to talk to Ben Scheirman, who I got to meet recently at the OKCodeCamp where we were both presenting again as well, fellow Commodore-64 starter Scott Bateman. It's always great to see Microsoft supporting these community driven events with the likes of Chris Koenig, Zain Naboulsi, Phil Wheat and of course Brad Abrams speaking.
It was very inspiring to see that the concept I began with TulsaTechFest in 2006 has started to spread into the larger cities. VancouverTechFest was the first thanks to Rob Chartier and Richard Campbell. They even started up a manifesto for it. Which we tried to follow, but we very successfully found that only having content on weekends doesn't appear to be as successful as the weekdays (see previous post) and below numbers.
My Windows Communication Foundation Presentation:
The thing that I find most astonishing is that even after a whole year of it's release, the .NET 3.0 Framework is still unheard of by many attendees to these types of events. Therefore, even though as a presenter I feel like Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is old news, since I have been studying and presenting on it for a year and half while it was still in Beta. I will just continue to bring the personal in-depth experience on the production usage of WCF in a high volume environments as well as consistently looking for the best way to present on the technology in easy to understand terms. With nothing more than the end goal of getting developers to start studying, learning and at least experimenting/playing with this and the rest of the .NET 3.0 Framework. Do I even have to say that these things have not changed much in the newly released Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 - .NET 3.5 Framework? The tools only continue to improve thanks to the Microsoft Patterns & Practices Team and the WCF Service Software Factory project, which Nov 9th released version 3.0 - Modeling Edition! Definitely download this and the 2.0 version and start seeing what interconnected application development can do for your enterprise solutions.
With good reason, I had to delay this post. I just happened to come across Bill Steele's post regarding IndyTechFest.com! It is amazing to see an idea start to benefit all these other communities! It's a good thing I started it with pure intentions - the contribution to the community, if I had been seeking ulterior motives I would have done things a lot differently.
Here's the events in a chronological order for everyone:
- October 14, 2006 - TulsaTechFest 2006 - 20 tracks, 119 sessions, 60+ speakers, 650+ registered, 360+ attendees
- November 14, 2006 - Santa Fe TechFest - details unknown, info from J. Michael Palermo Blog
- November 15, 2006 - Phoenix TechFest - details unknown, info from J. Michael Palermo Blog
- February 24, 2007 - VancouverTechFest - 4 tracks, 28 sessions, 25 speakers, 575 registered, ??? attendees
- August 25, 2007 - HoustonTechFest - 7 tracks, 36 sessions, 29 speakers, 865 registered, 476 attendees
- October 13, 2007 - IndyTechFest - 5 tracks, 26 sessions, 16 speakers, 370+ attendees
- October 19 & 20, 2007 - TulsaTechFest - 16 tracks, 100 sessions, 67+ speakers, 870+ registered, 650+ attendees on the 19th, 400+ on the 20th
- November 10, 2007 - AlbertaTechFest - 3 tracks, 18 sessions, 15 speakers, almost 200 attendees
If there hasn't been one already in your area, why not start one? There's just a couple major differences between a TechFest and a CodeCamp - TechFest can be any thing technology oriented, Microsoft Exchange, Sql Server, Data Security, Project Management, etc, where as a CodeCamp is typically "developer centric". A TechFest can have sponsorship, vendors, etc. - why not have the funds to provide bigger prizes, T-shirts and just an all around bigger event?
www.TechFests.com will be up shortly ( it is currently redirecting to TulsaTechFest) to be the one stop location for locations, dates and details on any and all TechFests.
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About dwalker
David Walker has over 15 years experience in application development with over 50% of that employed as a consultant with companies such as: Microsoft, IBM Global Services, Texaco, Winner Communications (ESPN.com), and Bank of Oklahoma. At the age of 14, he began his application development ambitions with a Commodore 64, BASIC, and a 300 baud modem. Even at that early age, he primarily focused on two specific application types: multi-user communities and database applications.
His hunger to learn as much as possible about development lead him through courses such as DBase III, DBase IV, Pascal, C, C++, Java, and several in UNIX. He started his development career first doing heavy processing with Access and VBA, then moved on to VB 3, Oracle, and Delphi. Visual Basic was one environment that remained constant for many years, including his very first .NET projects performed in Visual Basic.NET.
After working several years on very high end internal Corporate applications, the consultant company he was working for, sought out his ideas for actual software products that could be packaged and sold. He had already developed several prototypes of a dynamic portal application, before portals even became popular, so this became the logic decision and he became the Director of Product Development. Under his direction, a team of developers and graphic artists, took a skinning approach before that become popular, and completed the core portal application, and continued on to developer 15+ add-on modules, including things such as: Help Desk Ticket Systems, Change Control, Records Management, Human Resources, and many more applications. Eventually, it spun off into it's own separate company as KnowledgeGEAR, a complete intranet in the box solution.
Having worked as a consultant, he has had a experience with a very wide range of applications and architectures, at one time, even converting several Fox Pro and GW-Basic applications to VB 6 and ASP. His early training of Unix and the C language and years of experience with JavaScript, lead him very quickly to C#, where he has remained focused ever since.
He is the past President of the
Tulsa Developers .NET user group, founder and past President of the
Tulsa SQL Server Group and
Tulsa Java Developers Group, past Vice-President and Director of Membership Services of the
Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group.
He has been the director/chairman of the
TulsaTechFest event since it's inception in 2006. He coordinated the first Tulsa Code Camp and then rebranded it two years in a row as
School of Dev!
He is the founder and director of
NEOTECHCouncil (NorthEast Oklahoma Technology Council).
He was a board member, Vice-President of the Speakers Bureau for
INETA NORAM from June 2007 to June 2009.
He has been an MCP since 2003 and MCAD and MCSD since 2005. He is currently pursuing his MCDBA and then on to MCSE.
He was a Microsoft MVP - ASP/ASP.NET Developer from June 2007 - June 2009.
On June 22, 2009, he joined Microsoft as a ADC (Application Developer Consultant).