Central Ohio Day of .NET 2009 – Recap

I’m a little biased, but I have to say, the event was AWESOME! 

First off, we had a 25% increase in attendance over last year!  We had 191 software professionals through the door at the Roberts Centre in Wilmington, OH.  From the stand point of one of the organizers the event just couldn’t have gone smoother.

I’d like to thank the main CODODN staff: Jim Holmes, Carey Payette, Justin Kohnen, Bob Sledge, Matt Rigling and Chris Barth.  These people gave up a good deal of their own time over the last four months to ensure the event went well.  It’s volunteers like these that make our development community so strong.  My hat is off to you six.

Of course, I’d like to thank the sponsors.  With the economy being the way it is I’m very proud to point to our sponsors and say, “these companies care about the developer community”.  They understand that even in hard times such as these that supporting the community means supporting their own employees and businesses.  Microsoft, MAX Technical Training, DevExpress, Redgate, CBTS, Triune Group and SDS all provided financial support so that we could rent the facilities and provides some drinks all day.  About ten other companies provided raffle items and we handed out several thousand dollars worth of software and books through out the day.

I’d like to thank our room proctors and other volunteers.  Several of these volunteers showed up at 7:00 AM to get things in place, which means they woke up likely around 5:00 AM.  That’s commitment.

I’d like to thank Josh Holmes for being CODODN’s very first keynote speaker.  I think the message Josh had for us was very fitting for the current times and we all need to think about how to keep simplicity in our minds.

I’d like to thank Jeff Blankenburg for really coming through on providing lots of stuff for the event, such as the attendee bags, water bottles and projectors.  Jeff also put together the cool Microsoft Tag scavenger hunt and the after party (the board/card games were fun!).

I can’t thank the speakers enough.  Being a speaker myself I know how many hours go into producing the slide decks and demos.  I fully understand the effort it takes to prepare for talks such as these.  We had an awesome set of speakers and, once again, the evaluations of the content and speakers was overwhelmingly positive.  This year was the first year we included a complete track dedicated to the database developers and we had had a good showing for it.

I’d like to thank Carey Payette and Jennifer Marsman for putting together the Women In Technology dinner after the event. 

Finally, I’d like to thank the 191 people who came out to make the event a success.  Whether you were a speaker, a volunteer, a staff member or an attendee, all of you played a part in making this event a success.  This is the third year in a row I’ve been involved in helping organize this event and it is by far the best one we’ve had so far.