Live Event

conferences, etc. - see also Live Performance, UnConference

DbExpo in 1991 - I was developing a project time-tracking system in Paradox and feeling like I should be moving over toward that new Client Server stuff, with Oracle/Sybase and SqlWindows (Gupta). Went to DbExpo and everyone (esp Michael Stonebraker) was talking about how none of this stuff actually worked yet. (Oracle customers had onsite engineers do low-level fixes all the time). So I stayed retro. (I think someone rebuilt my system a few years later in MS-Access).

Software Development conf c.1997 - paranoid about needing to move from CMM-0 to 5. Convinced to just start incremental process improvements. (I think Luke Hohmann spoke.)

• went again when it overlapped with NetGravity conference I was speaking at (re Medscape Ad Serving). Didn't find it nearly as useful this time.

Silicon Alley confab ~1998. Met Douglas Rushkoff and a couple other cool people, but content was pretty lite.

Jerry Weinberg PSL.

Jerry Michalski retreat 2002.

PcForum in 2005: underwhelmed, esp given the price

Collaborative Technologies Conference in 2005 - underwhelmed other than social networking

BarCamp (NYC): 2006

HOPE: 2006, 2008

BarCamp-Chicago 2010-08-21-BarCampChicago

MicroConf 2012

ChicagoIdeasWeek: 2013-10-18-ChicagoIdeasWeekTechSummit

MindTheProduct San Francisco 2019

current attitude: if you're ripe for a significant change in perspective, and you go to the right conference for that change, then you can get great value. And sometimes just having a few days away from office/home, while having some bits of intellectual stimulating, can have benefits. But it's a pretty inefficient way to gain incremental knowledge, esp in the days of blogs and online forums.