2010 conferences
I had initially thought this year would be a bit slower for conferences. I hadn't planned on pursuing as many speaking engagements, and was going to taper back on attending various events as well. Despite that, circumstances seem to have materialized that have allowed for two additional speaking gigs, and an extra attendee badge. As an excuse to blog, I figured I ought to mention them.
Speaking…
Dynamic Church Conference
Note: Use the promo code IMPACT for $50.00 off registration.
I would be remiss if I did not mention my employer's annual event, the Dynamic Church Conference. I will be presenting a session on CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript — Prototype and jQuery. I will also be presenting Drupal Essentials, covering some of the fundamentals of site building with Drupal. Lastly, I will be on a site critique panel alongside Terry Storch and Stephen Anderson.
SXSW
I was asked by Beau Smith if I would participate in a SXSW panel dubbed CSS Framework Shootout, where the creators of several popular CSS frameworks share the rationale behind them, and we discuss why (or not) someone should use a framework when developing the front-end aspects of a site. The other panelists are: Josh Clayton, Chris Eppstein, and Nicole Sullivan.
OSCON
Myself and the other authors of the jQuery Cookbook were asked by O'Reilly to teach a 3-hour tutorial session about jQuery at their annual Open Source Conference. While the exact details are still being hammered out, expect to see several of us there, showing how to utilize JavaScript to build solid apps.
Ministry 2.0
While specific dates and venues are yet to be determined, I will be speaking at several Ministry 2.0 conferences throughout this year. They are currently in the process of re-branding. Without wanting to give anything away prematurely, expect to see some exciting stuff from these guys in the near future.
Attending…
Microsoft MIX
If you know me, you're probably aware that I can be somewhat critical of the Redmond giant, namely about Internet Explorer and various components in the .NET stack. It is partially for this reason that I have been invited to attend the MIX conference, and share my thoughts about how Microsoft can do things better, as well as give them an opportunity to show some of their demos to skeptical designers and developers. It's cool they're seeking real world feedback.
Note: It's cool to see the MIX site sporting the 24-col 960.gs layout!
FOWA Miami
Though it's come and gone, I thought I should first mention the Future of Web Apps, which was held recently in Miami. I liked the format of this conference. It didn't seem to be too lengthy or too short. The first day was basically a meet and greet, with sponsors and vendors presenting on their technologies.
Day two was filled with a continuous stream of presentations by some of the best and brightest in the industry. Day three was all workshops, where you could basically attend two half-day intensives on subjects of your choice. I went to one by Kevin Hale of Wufoo, and another with John Resig of jQuery fame.