Jon Box recently posted this question on his blog – Where do I go instead of PDC? (Since it was canceled this year.) He lists the big events that are happening more and more frequently. One that he left out is the Heartland Developer’s Conference $150 for Oct 18th & Oct 19th in Omaha, Nebraska. They consistently have what looks like an awesome event that I, as an event planner, use as a measuring stick to how well I am doing. Of course, he mentions DevLink.NET, which John Kellar and I have a healthy competition always cooking as well, after all, he and Michael Wiley are the whole reason I really pushed myself and went from “one of these days” to actually putting on the first Tulsa TechFest last year. They are always a tough act to follow.

In my opinion, to answer Jon’s question would simply be that everyone should go to all of them that they possibly can. The very same applies to the normal .NET User Group meetings in your areas. It benefits everyone. The more that attend, the bigger speakers, more sponsors and prizes. Everyone benefits when everyone shares their individual experiences and perspectives.

OKCodeCamp is shaping up to be a great first time effort and not just because I’ll be speaking there. As one of our members pointed out (just more friendly competitive fuel) – it should have been OKCCodeCamp — which means it currently is okcOdeCamp. 🙂

Of course, I am partial, but Tulsa TechFest is going to rock this year. It only being our second one, those that attended last year will be amazed at the differences between the two events. Not wanting to give a whole lot of specific details away just yet, here’s just a few:

As Jon mentioned, Jason Zander – General Manager for the .NET Framework will be delivering the very opening keynote.

Sean Alexander – Director of Microsoft Silverlight

Michael Scherotter – Microsoft Developer Evangelist from San Francisco

Markus Egger – Publisher of CoDe Magazine and President and Chief Software Architect of EPS Software Corp.,!

Wally McClure – host of the ASP.NET Podcast

Jeffrey Palermo bringing a “Party with Palermo Tulsa TechFest Style“

Bill Vaughn – SQL Server Guru of no equal and author of numerous SQL books!

Ambrose Little – Infragistics Codemunicator

The list definitely goes on and on.

Stay tuned to the web site for more updates very shortly. You can look at the details of last year’s event and get an idea of what will be happening this year because a very high percentage of the speakers from last year have been contacting us ready to do it again. That speaks a volumes to the success of last year.

Oh, and Jon, we’d love for you to come and speak as well. 🙂