Conference Price - Part II, the exception
Right…
so my last blog entry was all about how exorbitant the costs are to go to a technology [and probably any other type] conference. This post is going to, specifically, outline one exception to that, and generally, suggest that there are others out there as well. Just keep in the loop of your particular region and I’m sure there are a bunch of hard-working folks putting something together. I digress. To contradict my previous blog post, I want to introduce the Utah Open Source Conference 2009 [UTOSC].
UTOSC…
has been doing its thing for a few years now. I believe this will be their 3rd straight year. I did not go to the first [if my numbers are correct], but I did attend last year, and am definitely going to be attending this year. I even offered up myself as a volunteer, if they need a body to fill in an empty space between two or more presentations or whatnot. My scheduling requirements may have put them off a bit though, so they may just tell me to patsy-off. All good though, it’s the thought that counts…. uhhh… right?
So…
UTOSC is doing it right. They are focusing on regional markets and making it an actually affordable option for pretty much everyone. This year the cost for a full access pass is a mere $70/$100 [early bird/not early bird]. Now that’s the type of pricing that I can cough up. They even offer Expo only, and Single-Day pricing, if you just want a taste! Seriously. That’s very efficient pricing. Can I just say to the UTOCSC committee, that’s the way to teach the Monsters-Of-Conference [M-O-C], by example.
And…
so now you’re thinking something along the lines of; “Yeah, but at that price, it’s probably held in somebody’s basement with presentations given by his or her mom with topics such as, ‘My son helped me set up AOL’ or sumsuch”. Bad thoughts. Bad. The UTOSC folks have lassoed up some really great speakers. I’ll try to gather a few of the names as I dwindle on - if I have the motivation. Go ahead and scroll down, if you like, to see if I do or not.
Oh…
to further quash that whole “basement with mom” concern, I take it upon myself to point out that the conference also offers such things as labs, local user group meet-ups, a family day [it is Utah after all], an organized dinner, and even an Ignite Salt Lake session. If you haven’t experienced an Ignite event yet, be sure to this time. Very fun.
— Coffee Break —
Fine…
The coffee gave me a boost. I found a list of speakers for this year. Here is an incomplete list of Keynotes. There are more, but the coffee started to wear off. Sorry.
Stormy Peters - Executive Director of the Gnome Foundation
Dave McAllister - Director of Standards and Open Source at Adobe
Daren Brabham - Ph.D. Candidate & Graduate Teaching Fellow, University of Utah
Some other presenters are…
[in no particular order at all - so don’t be sad if you name isn’t first or - worse even - is last]: Paul Frields (Fedora/Red Hat), David Moss (SLCC), Aaron Burgemeister (Novell), Daniel Hanks (Omniture), Clint Savage (UTOSC Organizer), Kevron Rees (OpenICE) and the list goes on and on. If you wanna see a full list check out the UTOSC schedule. NOTE!!! None of the links, associated with any of the speakers above, were specifically provided to me [heh]. I either got them off of the UTOSC site, or googled. [If] my bad, let me know. :)
Wrapping up now…
I know, I know. This sounds like a commercial. It’s got the tinge of half-hour-paid-programming light shining upon it. To be completely straight, I didn’t intend for this blog entry to end up this way, I really, really, just wanted to contradict my last post. Seriously. The UTOSC folks and I aren’t in cahoots or anything, I just really like what they are doing and thought it was a good contrast to the M-O-Cs out there. So bite me.
Just to suggest otherwise…
there are a couple of other organizations out there trying to do some “more affordable” mini-conferences too. CodeWorks 2009 is doing PHP on the road. If that comes near me, I’ll probably go, but there’s nothing currently scheduled for my region. I’m sure there are others as well, but I’m tired and lazy and don’t want to type anymore. Ciao.
