CodeStock 2010: The Year We Connect

Later this week, registration will open for CodeStock 2010.  In this calm before the storm, I wanted to mention some changes previous attendees will notice, including price.  I’m not going to hide it – the cost of CodeStock has gone up.

The biggest driver of cost is the venue change.  Our old venue kicked us out… or “didn’t welcome us back”… or “isn’t interested in technology conferences”.   I never got a solid reason, but I did get a complaint that “our speakers connected their laptops to the projectors” (I think we were supposed to pantomime slides).  Even if I was to cap the event at no more than 400, the old venue isn’t interested.

Enough of that, let’s talk about the awesome new venue!  CodeStock 2010 will be held at the University of Tennessee Convention Center and the Bijou Theater, both located in downtown Knoxville, TN.  The UT Convention Center is a space truly designed for events like CodeStock, and will let us raise the attendee cap to 600.  The one drawback to the center is a lack of a 600 seat auditorium (there is a 170 seat auditorium we’ll have use of), which is where the Bijou Theatre comes in.  This historic theatre can hold over 700 people, and yet doesn’t have a bad seat in the house (there are no “obstructed view” seats).

Because the two buildings are close, but not side-by-side, we’ve gone with an “Inversion of Conference” plan.  Friday will start with registration and go straight to breakout sessions and the opening circle of open spaces (more on that in a moment).  We’ll end the day Friday early with time for everyone to enjoy downtown Knoxville and Market Square for dinner before heading to the Bijou for our keynote with Rachel Appel.  We’ll end the night at the Bijou with the CodeStock Social (details on the social to come later). 

One thing I did not like about last year’s CodeStock was having open spaces split across class rooms.  A key tenant of open spaces is the “law of two feet” – you should be free and welcome to bounce from one session to another.   This year we have a nice, large room for open spaces where we can have 4 concurrent discussions and you can easily move from one to another.  The excellent and experienced Alan Stevens will be facilitating again this year, keeping up the strong tradition of awesome CodeStock Open Spaces.

I’m also proud to say box lunches will not be present at CodeStock 2010.  Every year I’ve endured the complaints, but knew what the old venue wanted to charge for anything better.  The new venue has a much better set of lunch options, including a hot buffet lunch for only a few dollars more than the box lunches at the old venue.

Okay, time to cut to the chase.  What does all this mean for you, the attendee?  CodeStock 2010 will cost $55 this year, or $79 if you register on or after May 3, 2010.  (Planning the budget, I just couldn’t bring myself to say $80 even though that’s where the numbers pointed).  All registration fees and sponsorship money raised goes to cover the cost of the event, no one is paid for their part in helping to organize CodeStock and we plan the budget to break even.

I am biased, but I believe CodeStock is an excellent value.  This year we will have 13-14 concurrent breakout sessions each day across a wide selection of technologies and are adding sessions for IT Professionals.  I would love to say CodeStock is still $25/45 but the truth is we had a too-good-to-be-true deal (and was the reason I accepted many of the limitations and “quirks” of the old venue). 

Finally, the AT&T reception is much better downtown than the old venue, so those of you with iPhones might be able to use them this year!

Michael C. Neel
CodeStock Lead Organizer

It is with great honor I announce the keynote speaker at CodeStock 2010 will be Rachel Appel.  Rachel is a well known and respected speaker, a rising star of the .Net community.  I have no doubt she will giving the keynote address at larger conferences in the coming years, and I will have a bit of self pride when I say she’s been the keynote speaker at CodeStock!

I’ve known Rachel for several years now, as a fellow speaker,  ASPInsider, and ASP.NET MVP.  She has been involved with CodeStock 2008 and 2009, and holds the Microsoft Certified Trainer, MCAD & MCSD certifications (she knows her stuff!).

Her work in the community goes beyond speaking at community and professional events across the nation.  Rachel is the Vice President of the .Net Valley user group, as well as a leader and regular speaker in the Philly.NET and Central Penn.NET user groups of Pennsylvania.  In January of 2010, Rachel joined Microsoft’s Developer & Platform Evangelism team as a Developer Evangelist for the New York City metro area.

Want to join Rachel?  CodeStock is still accepting speakers!

We are still looking for speakers for CodeStock 2010 (deadline is February 28, 2010).  We need not only developer focused topics, but also IT Pro and entrepreneur topics as well.  If you have a podcast or an idea for a panel discussion, we are taking submissions for those as well.

My topic is NDA though, can I submit a session?

I just returned from two weeks of GameFest and Microsoft’s MVP Summit, so I know some awesome stuff that is top secret today, but will be public knowledge by CodeStock.   We will accept NDA topics (so long as they will be public before CodeStock 2010) – just submit a session as “NDA” in the area you think it best fits.  Be sure to submit some non NDA sessions in that area as well, incase a last minute changes is needed.  NDA sessions will be selected by the CodeStock committee, and not available for attendee vote, or listed before the NDA is lifted (that may be obvious, but wanted to state that to be clear).

Should I focus on intro content, or “go deep”?

Both.  We welcome developers and IT pros at all levels, and just because a person is an expert in one area doesn’t mean they aren’t a novice in another.

Isn’t CodeStock a Microsoft only event?

NO!  CodeStock is open to any technology and platform, however submissions in non Microsoft have always been light.  We cannot select a session topic that isn’t submitted, so if you want to see a greater representation of your favorite platform, speak up (literally!).

To submit a topic to CodeStock 2010 and read more on the selection process, please visit us at http://CodeStock.org

Michael C. Neel
CodeStock Lead Organizer

Mark your calendar, CodeStock 2010 will be June 25-26, 2010.  This year we are moving to a bigger and better location, the University of Tennessee Convention Center in downtown Knoxville, TN.   There will also be some events held at the historic Bijou Theater, also located in downtown Knoxville.

What is there in store for this year’s CodeStock?  We will continue to hold several developer focused sessions for developers of all skill levels across many languages and platforms.  The CodeStock tradition of excellent Open Spaces along side tradition session format will return, and benefit greatly from our new venue’s layout. 

We are expanding the scope of the conference to include two new tracks – IT Pro and Entrepreneur.  The IT Pro track will be filled with sessions server, database, and network administrators.  The Entrepreneur track will be made up of sessions around founding a technology startup or running a technology company.  We held a few Entrepreneur sessions at CodeStock 2009 and based on feedback it’s clear you want more!

CodeStock is a community event, and in addition to the volunteers who organize the details there are the real heroes of CodeStock: The Speakers.  Without speakers CodeStock would be… well, a 600 person lunch.  Speakers are the ones who bring great content to CodeStock, and we are looking for speakers now for CodeStock 2010.

The CodeStock “Call for Speakers” information can be found at http://codestock.org.  Call for speakers is currently open, and will close after February 28, 2010 (you must complete all submissions before March 1, 2010).  If you are not a season veteran of technology don’t worry – as long as you are passionate about a topic you want to share your qualified to be a speaker.  Attendees will again vote this year on sessions, so if you have some topic you are not sure about you can submit them to see what others think.

CodeStock 2010 registrations will open in early March, 2010.  You can stay up to date on all things CodeStock by following us on twitter (http://twitter.com/codestock), and subscribing to our RSS News feed at http://codestock.org.

The site is sparse at the moment as we are setting up CodeStock 2010, but the Call for Speakers is online and ready for submissions!  Just head over to the Call For Speakers page to get started!

Michael C. Neel
CodeStock Lead Organizer